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AnneofGreenGabl

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byL.M.Montgomery
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anne Of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

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Title: Anne Of Green Gables

Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Release Date: June 25, 2008 [EBook #45]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNE OF GREEN GABLES ***

Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES


By Lucy Maud Montgomery
Contents
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
CHAPTER I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised
CHAPTER II. Matthew Cuthbert is surprised
CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised
CHAPTER IV. Morning at Green Gables
CHAPTER V. Anne's History
CHAPTER VI. Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
CHAPTER VII. Anne Says Her Prayers
CHAPTER VIII. Anne's Bringing-up Is Begun
CHAPTER IX. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified
CHAPTER X. Anne's Apology
CHAPTER XI. Anne's Impressions of Sunday-School
CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise
CHAPTER XIII. The Delights of Anticipation
CHAPTER XIV. Anne's Confession
CHAPTER XV. A Tempest in the School Teapot
CHAPTER XVI. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results
CHAPTER XVII. A New Interest in Life
CHAPTER XVIII. Anne to the Rescue
CHAPTER XIX. A Concert a Catastrophe and a Confession
CHAPTER XX. A Good Imagination Gone Wrong
CHAPTER XXI. A New Departure in Flavorings
CHAPTER XXII. Anne is Invited Out to Tea
CHAPTER XXIII. Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor
CHAPTER XXIV. Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert
CHAPTER XXV. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves
CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed
CHAPTER XXVII. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit
CHAPTER XXVIII. An Unfortunate Lily Maid
CHAPTER XXIX. An Epoch in Anne's Life
CHAPTER XXX. The Queens Class Is Organized
CHAPTER XXXI. Where the Brook and River Meet
CHAPTER XXXII. The Pass List Is Out
CHAPTER XXXIII. The Hotel Concert
CHAPTER XXXIV. A Queen's Girl
CHAPTER XXXV. The Winter at Queen's
CHAPTER XXXVI. The Glory and the Dream
CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death
CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Bend in the road
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
CHAPTER I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised
Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow,
fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in
the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier
course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached
Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs.
Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that
Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from
brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest
until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.
There are plenty of people in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend closely to their neighbor's
business by dint of neglecting their own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable
creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was
a notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she "ran" the Sewing Circle,
helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign
Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen
window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts—she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers
were wont to tell in awed voices—and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the
hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula
jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on two sides of it, anybody who went out of it or
into it had to pass over that hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel's all-seeing eye.
She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming in at the window warm
and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom,
hummed over by a myriad of bees. Thomas Lynde—a meek little man whom Avonlea people
called "Rachel Lynde's husband"—was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond the barn;
and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on the big red brook field away over by
Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the
evening before in William J. Blair's store over at Carmody that he meant to sow his turnip seed the
next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to
volunteer information about anything in his whole life.
And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly
driving over the hollow and up the hill; moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes,
which was plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and the sorrel mare,
which betokened that he was going a considerable distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert
going and why was he going there?
Had it been any other man in Avonlea, Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this and that together, might
have given a pretty good guess as to both questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it
must be something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and
hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to talk. Matthew,
dressed up with a white collar and driving in a buggy, was something that didn't happen often. Mrs.
Rachel, ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoon's enjoyment was spoiled.
"I'll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla where he's gone and why,"
the worthy woman finally concluded. "He doesn't generally go to town this time of year and he
NEVER visits; if he'd run out of turnip seed he wouldn't dress up and take the buggy to go for
more; he wasn't driving fast enough to be going for a doctor. Yet something must have happened
since last night to start him off. I'm clean puzzled, that's what, and I won't know a minute's peace of
mind or conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea today."
Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the big, rambling, orchard-
embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a scant quarter of a mile up the road from
Lynde's Hollow. To be sure, the long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthbert's father, as
shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men
without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built
at the furthest edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible from the main
road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did
not call living in such a place LIVING at all.
"It's just STAYING, that's what," she said as she stepped along the deep-rutted, grassy lane
bordered with wild rose bushes. "It's no wonder Matthew and Marilla are both a little odd, living
away back here by themselves. Trees aren't much company, though dear knows if they were
there'd be enough of them. I'd ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem contented enough; but
then, I suppose, they're used to it. A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the
Irishman said."
With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green Gables. Very green
and neat and precise was that yard, set about on one side with great patriarchal willows and the
other with prim Lombardies. Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would
have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla Cuthbert swept that
yard over as often as she swept her house. One could have eaten a meal off the ground without
overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt.
Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in when bidden to do so. The
kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful apartment—or would have been cheerful if it had not been
so painfully clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its windows
looked east and west; through the west one, looking out on the back yard, came a flood of mellow
June sunlight; but the east one, whence you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left
orchard and nodding, slender birches down in the hollow by the brook, was greened over by a
tangle of vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine,
which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be
taken seriously; and here she sat now, knitting, and the table behind her was laid for supper.
Mrs. Rachel, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a mental note of everything that
was on that table. There were three plates laid, so that Marilla must be expecting some one home
with Matthew to tea; but the dishes were everyday dishes and there was only crab-apple preserves
and one kind of cake, so that the expected company could not be any particular company. Yet what
of Matthew's white collar and the sorrel mare? Mrs. Rachel was getting fairly dizzy with this unusual
mystery about quiet, unmysterious Green Gables.
"Good evening, Rachel," Marilla said briskly. "This is a real fine evening, isn't it? Won't you sit
down? How are all your folks?"
Something that for lack of any other name might be called friendship existed and always had
existed between Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel, in spite of—or perhaps because of—their
dissimilarity.
Marilla was a tall, thin woman, with angles and without curves; her dark hair showed some gray
streaks and was always twisted up in a hard little knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck
aggressively through it. She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience,
which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had been ever so
slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humor.
"We're all pretty well," said Mrs. Rachel. "I was kind of afraid YOU weren't, though, when I saw
Matthew starting off today. I thought maybe he was going to the doctor's."
Marilla's lips twitched understandingly. She had expected Mrs. Rachel up; she had known that
the sight of Matthew jaunting off so unaccountably would be too much for her neighbor's curiosity.
"Oh, no, I'm quite well although I had a bad headache yesterday," she said. "Matthew went to
Bright River. We're getting a little boy from an orphan asylum in Nova Scotia and he's coming on
the train tonight."
If Marilla had said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a kangaroo from Australia Mrs.
Rachel could not have been more astonished. She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It
was unsupposable that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced to
suppose it.
"Are you in earnest, Marilla?" she demanded when voice returned to her.
"Yes, of course," said Marilla, as if getting boys from orphan asylums in Nova Scotia were part
of the usual spring work on any well-regulated Avonlea farm instead of being an unheard of
innovation.
Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought in exclamation points. A
boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the
world was certainly turning upside down! She would be surprised at nothing after this! Nothing!
"What on earth put such a notion into your head?" she demanded disapprovingly.
This had been done without her advice being asked, and must perforce be disapproved.
"Well, we've been thinking about it for some time—all winter in fact," returned Marilla. "Mrs.
Alexander Spencer was up here one day before Christmas and she said she was going to get a
little girl from the asylum over in Hopeton in the spring. Her cousin lives there and Mrs. Spencer
has visited here and knows all about it. So Matthew and I have talked it over off and on ever since.
We thought we'd get a boy. Matthew is getting up in years, you know—he's sixty—and he isn't so
spry as he once was. His heart troubles him a good deal. And you know how desperate hard it's
got to be to get hired help. There's never anybody to be had but those stupid, half-grown little
French boys; and as soon as you do get one broke into your ways and taught something he's up
and off to the lobster canneries or the States. At first Matthew suggested getting a Home boy. But I
said 'no' flat to that. 'They may be all right—I'm not saying they're not—but no London street Arabs
for me,' I said. 'Give me a native born at least. There'll be a risk, no matter who we get. But I'll feel
easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a born Canadian.' So in the end we
decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to pick us out one when she went over to get her little girl. We heard
last week she was going, so we sent her word by Richard Spencer's folks at Carmody to bring us
a smart, likely boy of about ten or eleven. We decided that would be the best age—old enough to
be of some use in doing chores right off and young enough to be trained up proper. We mean to
give him a good home and schooling. We had a telegram from Mrs. Alexander Spencer today
—the mail-man brought it from the station—saying they were coming on the five-thirty train tonight.
So Matthew went to Bright River to meet him. Mrs. Spencer will drop him off there. Of course she
goes on to White Sands station herself."
Mrs. Rachel prided herself on always speaking her mind; she proceeded to speak it now, having
adjusted her mental attitude to this amazing piece of news.
"Well, Marilla, I'll just tell you plain that I think you're doing a mighty foolish thing—a risky thing,
that's what. You don't know what you're getting. You're bringing a strange child into your house and
home and you don't know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is like nor what sort of
parents he had nor how he's likely to turn out. Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a
man and his wife up west of the Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to the
house at night—set it ON PURPOSE, Marilla—and nearly burnt them to a crisp in their beds. And I
know another case where an adopted boy used to suck the eggs—they couldn't break him of it. If
you had asked my advice in the matter—which you didn't do, Marilla—I'd have said for mercy's
sake not to think of such a thing, that's what."
This Job's comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Marilla. She knitted steadily on.
"I don't deny there's something in what you say, Rachel. I've had some qualms myself. But
Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see that, so I gave in. It's so seldom Matthew sets his mind
on anything that when he does I always feel it's my duty to give in. And as for the risk, there's risks
in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There's risks in people's having children of their
own if it comes to that—they don't always turn out well. And then Nova Scotia is right close to the
Island. It isn't as if we were getting him from England or the States. He can't be much different from
ourselves."
"Well, I hope it will turn out all right," said Mrs. Rachel in a tone that plainly indicated her painful
doubts. "Only don't say I didn't warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the
well—I heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and the
whole family died in fearful agonies. Only, it was a girl in that instance."
"Well, we're not getting a girl," said Marilla, as if poisoning wells were a purely feminine
accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of a boy. "I'd never dream of taking a girl to
bring up. I wonder at Mrs. Alexander Spencer for doing it. But there, SHE wouldn't shrink from
adopting a whole orphan asylum if she took it into her head."
Mrs. Rachel would have liked to stay until Matthew came home with his imported orphan. But
reflecting that it would be a good two hours at least before his arrival she concluded to go up the
road to Robert Bell's and tell the news. It would certainly make a sensation second to none, and
Mrs. Rachel dearly loved to make a sensation. So she took herself away, somewhat to Marilla's
relief, for the latter felt her doubts and fears reviving under the influence of Mrs. Rachel's
pessimism.
"Well, of all things that ever were or will be!" ejaculated Mrs. Rachel when she was safely out in
the lane. "It does really seem as if I must be dreaming. Well, I'm sorry for that poor young one and
no mistake. Matthew and Marilla don't know anything about children and they'll expect him to be
wiser and steadier that his own grandfather, if so be's he ever had a grandfather, which is doubtful.
It seems uncanny to think of a child at Green Gables somehow; there's never been one there, for
Matthew and Marilla were grown up when the new house was built—if they ever WERE children,
which is hard to believe when one looks at them. I wouldn't be in that orphan's shoes for anything.
My, but I pity him, that's what."
So said Mrs. Rachel to the wild rose bushes out of the fulness of her heart; but if she could have
seen the child who was waiting patiently at the Bright River station at that very moment her pity
would have been still deeper and more profound.
CHAPTER II. Matthew Cuthbert is surprised
Matthew Cuthbert and the sorrel mare jogged comfortably over the eight miles to Bright River. It
was a pretty road, running along between snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsamy fir
wood to drive through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air was sweet
with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon
mists of pearl and purple; while

"The little birds sang as if it were


The one day of summer in all the year."

Matthew enjoyed the drive after his own fashion, except during the moments when he met
women and had to nod to them—for in Prince Edward island you are supposed to nod to all and
sundry you meet on the road whether you know them or not.
Matthew dreaded all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel; he had an uncomfortable feeling
that the mysterious creatures were secretly laughing at him. He may have been quite right in
thinking so, for he was an odd-looking personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray hair
that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard which he had worn ever since he
was twenty. In fact, he had looked at twenty very much as he looked at sixty, lacking a little of the
grayness.
When he reached Bright River there was no sign of any train; he thought he was too early, so he
tied his horse in the yard of the small Bright River hotel and went over to the station house. The
long platform was almost deserted; the only living creature in sight being a girl who was sitting on a
pile of shingles at the extreme end. Matthew, barely noting that it WAS a girl, sidled past her as
quickly as possible without looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have failed to notice the
tense rigidity and expectation of her attitude and expression. She was sitting there waiting for
something or somebody and, since sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat
and waited with all her might and main.
Matthew encountered the stationmaster locking up the ticket office preparatory to going home
for supper, and asked him if the five-thirty train would soon be along.
"The five-thirty train has been in and gone half an hour ago," answered that brisk official. "But
there was a passenger dropped off for you—a little girl. She's sitting out there on the shingles. I
asked her to go into the ladies' waiting room, but she informed me gravely that she preferred to
stay outside. 'There was more scope for imagination,' she said. She's a case, I should say."
"I'm not expecting a girl," said Matthew blankly. "It's a boy I've come for. He should be here. Mrs.
Alexander Spencer was to bring him over from Nova Scotia for me."
The stationmaster whistled.
"Guess there's some mistake," he said. "Mrs. Spencer came off the train with that girl and gave
her into my charge. Said you and your sister were adopting her from an orphan asylum and that
you would be along for her presently. That's all I know about it—and I haven't got any more orphans
concealed hereabouts."
"I don't understand," said Matthew helplessly, wishing that Marilla was at hand to cope with the
situation.
"Well, you'd better question the girl," said the station-master carelessly. "I dare say she'll be able
to explain—she's got a tongue of her own, that's certain. Maybe they were out of boys of the brand
you wanted."
He walked jauntily away, being hungry, and the unfortunate Matthew was left to do that which was
harder for him than bearding a lion in its den—walk up to a girl—a strange girl—an orphan girl
—and demand of her why she wasn't a boy. Matthew groaned in spirit as he turned about and
shuffled gently down the platform towards her.
She had been watching him ever since he had passed her and she had her eyes on him now.
Matthew was not looking at her and would not have seen what she was really like if he had been,
but an ordinary observer would have seen this: A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very
tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-gray wincey. She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the
hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was
small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, which looked
green in some lights and moods and gray in others.
So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very
pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-
lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary
observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-
child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.
Matthew, however, was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as soon as she concluded that he
was coming to her she stood up, grasping with one thin brown hand the handle of a shabby, old-
fashioned carpet-bag; the other she held out to him.
"I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?" she said in a peculiarly clear, sweet
voice. "I'm very glad to see you. I was beginning to be afraid you weren't coming for me and I was
imagining all the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind that if
you didn't come for me to-night I'd go down the track to that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and
climb up into it to stay all night. I wouldn't be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a wild
cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don't you think? You could imagine you were
dwelling in marble halls, couldn't you? And I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning,
if you didn't to-night."
Matthew had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his; then and there he decided what to
do. He could not tell this child with the glowing eyes that there had been a mistake; he would take
her home and let Marilla do that. She couldn't be left at Bright River anyhow, no matter what
mistake had been made, so all questions and explanations might as well be deferred until he was
safely back at Green Gables.
"I'm sorry I was late," he said shyly. "Come along. The horse is over in the yard. Give me your
bag."
"Oh, I can carry it," the child responded cheerfully. "It isn't heavy. I've got all my worldly goods in it,
but it isn't heavy. And if it isn't carried in just a certain way the handle pulls out—so I'd better keep it
because I know the exact knack of it. It's an extremely old carpet-bag. Oh, I'm very glad you've
come, even if it would have been nice to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. We've got to drive a long
piece, haven't we? Mrs. Spencer said it was eight miles. I'm glad because I love driving. Oh, it
seems so wonderful that I'm going to live with you and belong to you. I've never belonged to
anybody—not really. But the asylum was the worst. I've only been in it four months, but that was
enough. I don't suppose you ever were an orphan in an asylum, so you can't possibly understand
what it is like. It's worse than anything you could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me to
talk like that, but I didn't mean to be wicked. It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it?
They were good, you know—the asylum people. But there is so little scope for the imagination in
an asylum—only just in the other orphans. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about them—to
imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really the daughter of a belted earl, who had
been stolen away from her parents in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could
confess. I used to lie awake at nights and imagine things like that, because I didn't have time in the
day. I guess that's why I'm so thin—I AM dreadful thin, ain't I? There isn't a pick on my bones. I do
love to imagine I'm nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows."
With this Matthew's companion stopped talking, partly because she was out of breath and partly
because they had reached the buggy. Not another word did she say until they had left the village
and were driving down a steep little hill, the road part of which had been cut so deeply into the soft
soil, that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees and slim white birches, were several
feet above their heads.
The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that brushed against the side of
the buggy.
"Isn't that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, all white and lacy, make you
think of?" she asked.
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Why, a bride, of course—a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil. I've never seen one, but I
can imagine what she would look like. I don't ever expect to be a bride myself. I'm so homely
nobody will ever want to marry me—unless it might be a foreign missionary. I suppose a foreign
missionary mightn't be very particular. But I do hope that some day I shall have a white dress. That
is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I just love pretty clothes. And I've never had a pretty dress in my
life that I can remember—but of course it's all the more to look forward to, isn't it? And then I can
imagine that I'm dressed gorgeously. This morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed
because I had to wear this horrid old wincey dress. All the orphans had to wear them, you know. A
merchant in Hopeton last winter donated three hundred yards of wincey to the asylum. Some
people said it was because he couldn't sell it, but I'd rather believe that it was out of the kindness
of his heart, wouldn't you? When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be looking at me
and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk
dress—because when you ARE imagining you might as well imagine something worth while—and
a big hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and boots. I felt
cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to the Island with all my might. I wasn't a bit sick
coming over in the boat. Neither was Mrs. Spencer although she generally is. She said she hadn't
time to get sick, watching to see that I didn't fall overboard. She said she never saw the beat of me
for prowling about. But if it kept her from being seasick it's a mercy I did prowl, isn't it? And I
wanted to see everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I didn't know whether I'd ever
have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom! This Island is the
bloomiest place. I just love it already, and I'm so glad I'm going to live here. I've always heard that
Prince Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine I was living here,
but I never really expected I would. It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it? But
those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began
to flash past I asked Mrs. Spencer what made them red and she said she didn't know and for pity's
sake not to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand already. I
suppose I had, too, but how you going to find out about things if you don't ask questions? And what
DOES make the roads red?"
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Well, that is one of the things to find out sometime. Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there
are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it's such an interesting world. It
wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for
imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do.
Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it,
although it's difficult."
Matthew, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet folks he liked talkative
people when they were willing to do the talking themselves and did not expect him to keep up his
end of it. But he had never expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad enough in
all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling past him timidly,
with sidewise glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to
say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this freckled witch was very
different, and although he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk
mental processes he thought that he "kind of liked her chatter." So he said as shyly as usual:
"Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don't mind."
"Oh, I'm so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together fine. It's such a relief to talk
when one wants to and not be told that children should be seen and not heard. I've had that said to
me a million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have
big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?"
"Well now, that seems reasonable," said Matthew.
"Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it isn't—it's firmly fastened at
one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she
said there were trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And there weren't any at
all about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny things out in front with little whitewashed cagey
things about them. They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to make me
want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, 'Oh, you POOR little things! If you were out in a
great big woods with other trees all around you and little mosses and Junebells growing over your
roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches, you could grow, couldn't you?
But you can't where you are. I know just exactly how you feel, little trees.' I felt sorry to leave them
behind this morning. You do get so attached to things like that, don't you? Is there a brook
anywhere near Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer that."
"Well now, yes, there's one right below the house."
"Fancy. It's always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I never expected I would, though.
Dreams don't often come true, do they? Wouldn't it be nice if they did? But just now I feel pretty
nearly perfectly happy. I can't feel exactly perfectly happy because—well, what color would you call
this?"
She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it up before
Matthew's eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of ladies' tresses, but in this case
there couldn't be much doubt.
"It's red, ain't it?" he said.
The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from her very toes and to
exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.
"Yes, it's red," she said resignedly. "Now you see why I can't be perfectly happy. Nobody could
who has red hair. I don't mind the other things so much—the freckles and the green eyes and my
skinniness. I can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion
and lovely starry violet eyes. But I CANNOT imagine that red hair away. I do my best. I think to
myself, 'Now my hair is a glorious black, black as the raven's wing.' But all the time I KNOW it is
just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. I read of a girl once in a novel who
had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn't red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster
brow. What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?"
"Well now, I'm afraid I can't," said Matthew, who was getting a little dizzy. He felt as he had once
felt in his rash youth when another boy had enticed him on the merry-go-round at a picnic.
"Well, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was divinely beautiful.
Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to be divinely beautiful?"
"Well now, no, I haven't," confessed Matthew ingenuously.
"I have, often. Which would you rather be if you had the choice—divinely beautiful or dazzlingly
clever or angelically good?"
"Well now, I—I don't know exactly."
"Neither do I. I can never decide. But it doesn't make much real difference for it isn't likely I'll ever
be either. It's certain I'll never be angelically good. Mrs. Spencer says—oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr.
Cuthbert!! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert!!!"
That was not what Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled out of the buggy nor had
Matthew done anything astonishing. They had simply rounded a curve in the road and found
themselves in the "Avenue."
The "Avenue," so called by the Newbridge people, was a stretch of road four or five hundred
yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading apple-trees, planted years ago by
an eccentric old farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the
boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone
like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.
Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the buggy, her thin hands
clasped before her, her face lifted rapturously to the white splendor above. Even when they had
passed out and were driving down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still
with rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly
across that glowing background. Through Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at
them and small boys hooted and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove, still in
silence. When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child had not spoken. She
could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically as she could talk.
"I guess you're feeling pretty tired and hungry," Matthew ventured to say at last, accounting for
her long visitation of dumbness with the only reason he could think of. "But we haven't very far to go
now—only another mile."
She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the dreamy gaze of a soul
that had been wondering afar, star-led.
"Oh, Mr. Cuthbert," she whispered, "that place we came through—that white place—what was it?
"
"Well now, you must mean the Avenue," said Matthew after a few moments' profound reflection.
"It is a kind of pretty place."
"Pretty? Oh, PRETTY doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, either. They don't go far
enough. Oh, it was wonderful—wonderful. It's the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be improved
upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here"—she put one hand on her breast—"it made a queer
funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?"
"Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."
"I have it lots of time—whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But they shouldn't call that lovely
place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like that. They should call it—let me see—the
White Way of Delight. Isn't that a nice imaginative name? When I don't like the name of a place or
a person I always imagine a new one and always think of them so. There was a girl at the asylum
whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people
may call that place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight. Have we really
only another mile to go before we get home? I'm glad and I'm sorry. I'm sorry because this drive
has been so pleasant and I'm always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter
may come after, but you can never be sure. And it's so often the case that it isn't pleasanter. That
has been my experience anyhow. But I'm glad to think of getting home. You see, I've never had a
real home since I can remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a
really truly home. Oh, isn't that pretty!"
They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking almost like a river so
long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it midway and from there to its lower end, where an
amber-hued belt of sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a glory of
many shifting hues—the most spiritual shadings of crocus and rose and ethereal green, with other
elusive tintings for which no name has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into
fringing groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering shadows. Here and
there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection.
From the marsh at the head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs.
There was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on a slope beyond and,
although it was not yet quite dark, a light was shining from one of its windows.
"That's Barry's pond," said Matthew.
"Oh, I don't like that name, either. I shall call it—let me see—the Lake of Shining Waters. Yes,
that is the right name for it. I know because of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it
gives me a thrill. Do things ever give you a thrill?"
Matthew ruminated.
"Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly white grubs that spade up in
the cucumber beds. I hate the look of them."
"Oh, I don't think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you think it can? There doesn't
seem to be much connection between grubs and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do
other people call it Barry's pond?"
"I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard Slope's the name of his place.
If it wasn't for that big bush behind it you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go
over the bridge and round by the road, so it's near half a mile further."
"Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either—about my size."
"He's got one about eleven. Her name is Diana."
"Oh!" with a long indrawing of breath. "What a perfectly lovely name!"
"Well now, I dunno. There's something dreadful heathenish about it, seems to me. I'd ruther Jane
or Mary or some sensible name like that. But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster
boarding there and they gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana."
"I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at
the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help
imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us.
So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle.
Because, you see, if the bridge DID crumple up I'd want to SEE it crumple. What a jolly rumble it
makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this
world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say
good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it
was smiling at me."
When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said:
"We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over—"
"Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting
her eyes that she might not see his gesture. "Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."
She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set
some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark
church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-
rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted,
eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white
with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest
sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise.
"That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing.
Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly.
"Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so's you could tell."
"No, she didn't—really she didn't. All she said might just as well have been about most of those
other places. I hadn't any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home.
Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the
elbow up, for I've pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling
would come over me and I'd be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd pinch myself to see if it was
real—until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I'd better go on
dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But it IS real and we're nearly home."
With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily. He felt glad that it
would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed
for was not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but
not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into
the long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from
the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was not of Marilla or himself he
was thinking of the trouble this mistake was probably going to make for them, but of the child's
disappointment. When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an
uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something—much the same feeling
that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature.
The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were rustling silkily all round
it.
"Listen to the trees talking in their sleep," she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. "What
nice dreams they must have!"
Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained "all her worldly goods," she followed him
into the house.
CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised
Marilla came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her eyes fell of the odd little
figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the long braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she
stopped short in amazement.
"Matthew Cuthbert, who's that?" she ejaculated. "Where is the boy?"
"There wasn't any boy," said Matthew wretchedly. "There was only HER."
He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her name.
"No boy! But there MUST have been a boy," insisted Marilla. "We sent word to Mrs. Spencer to
bring a boy."
"Well, she didn't. She brought HER. I asked the station-master. And I had to bring her home. She
couldn't be left there, no matter where the mistake had come in."
"Well, this is a pretty piece of business!" ejaculated Marilla.
During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from one to the other, all the
animation fading out of her face. Suddenly she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been
said. Dropping her precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands.
"You don't want me!" she cried. "You don't want me because I'm not a boy! I might have expected
it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known
nobody really did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I'm going to burst into tears!"
Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging her arms out upon it, and
burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry stormily. Marilla and Matthew looked at each other
deprecatingly across the stove. Neither of them knew what to say or do. Finally Marilla stepped
lamely into the breach.
"Well, well, there's no need to cry so about it."
"Yes, there IS need!" The child raised her head quickly, revealing a tear-stained face and
trembling lips. "YOU would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought
was going to be home and found that they didn't want you because you weren't a boy. Oh, this is
the most TRAGICAL thing that ever happened to me!"
Something like a reluctant smile, rather rusty from long disuse, mellowed Marilla's grim
expression.
"Well, don't cry any more. We're not going to turn you out-of-doors to-night. You'll have to stay
here until we investigate this affair. What's your name?"
The child hesitated for a moment.
"Will you please call me Cordelia?" she said eagerly.
"CALL you Cordelia? Is that your name?"
"No-o-o, it's not exactly my name, but I would love to be called Cordelia. It's such a perfectly
elegant name."
"I don't know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn't your name, what is?"
"Anne Shirley," reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, "but, oh, please do call me
Cordelia. It can't matter much to you what you call me if I'm only going to be here a little while, can
it? And Anne is such an unromantic name."
"Unromantic fiddlesticks!" said the unsympathetic Marilla. "Anne is a real good plain sensible
name. You've no need to be ashamed of it."
"Oh, I'm not ashamed of it," explained Anne, "only I like Cordelia better. I've always imagined that
my name was Cordelia—at least, I always have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine
it was Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled
with an E."
"What difference does it make how it's spelled?" asked Marilla with another rusty smile as she
picked up the teapot.
"Oh, it makes SUCH a difference. It LOOKS so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced
can't you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but
A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you'll only call me Anne spelled with an E I shall try to
reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia."
"Very well, then, Anne spelled with an E, can you tell us how this mistake came to be made? We
sent word to Mrs. Spencer to bring us a boy. Were there no boys at the asylum?"
"Oh, yes, there was an abundance of them. But Mrs. Spencer said DISTINCTLY that you wanted
a girl about eleven years old. And the matron said she thought I would do. You don't know how
delighted I was. I couldn't sleep all last night for joy. Oh," she added reproachfully, turning to
Matthew, "why didn't you tell me at the station that you didn't want me and leave me there? If I hadn't
seen the White Way of Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters it wouldn't be so hard."
"What on earth does she mean?" demanded Marilla, staring at Matthew.
"She—she's just referring to some conversation we had on the road," said Matthew hastily. "I'm
going out to put the mare in, Marilla. Have tea ready when I come back."
"Did Mrs. Spencer bring anybody over besides you?" continued Marilla when Matthew had gone
out.
"She brought Lily Jones for herself. Lily is only five years old and she is very beautiful and had
nut-brown hair. If I was very beautiful and had nut-brown hair would you keep me?"
"No. We want a boy to help Matthew on the farm. A girl would be of no use to us. Take off your
hat. I'll lay it and your bag on the hall table."
Anne took off her hat meekly. Matthew came back presently and they sat down to supper. But
Anne could not eat. In vain she nibbled at the bread and butter and pecked at the crab-apple
preserve out of the little scalloped glass dish by her plate. She did not really make any headway at
all.
"You're not eating anything," said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it were a serious shortcoming.
Anne sighed.
"I can't. I'm in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?"
"I've never been in the depths of despair, so I can't say," responded Marilla.
"Weren't you? Well, did you ever try to IMAGINE you were in the depths of despair?"
"No, I didn't."
"Then I don't think you can understand what it's like. It's very uncomfortable feeling indeed. When
you try to eat a lump comes right up in your throat and you can't swallow anything, not even if it was
a chocolate caramel. I had one chocolate caramel once two years ago and it was simply delicious.
I've often dreamed since then that I had a lot of chocolate caramels, but I always wake up just when
I'm going to eat them. I do hope you won't be offended because I can't eat. Everything is extremely
nice, but still I cannot eat."
"I guess she's tired," said Matthew, who hadn't spoken since his return from the barn. "Best put
her to bed, Marilla."
Marilla had been wondering where Anne should be put to bed. She had prepared a couch in the
kitchen chamber for the desired and expected boy. But, although it was neat and clean, it did not
seem quite the thing to put a girl there somehow. But the spare room was out of the question for
such a stray waif, so there remained only the east gable room. Marilla lighted a candle and told
Anne to follow her, which Anne spiritlessly did, taking her hat and carpet-bag from the hall table as
she passed. The hall was fearsomely clean; the little gable chamber in which she presently found
herself seemed still cleaner.
Marilla set the candle on a three-legged, three-cornered table and turned down the bedclothes.
"I suppose you have a nightgown?" she questioned.
Anne nodded.
"Yes, I have two. The matron of the asylum made them for me. They're fearfully skimpy. There is
never enough to go around in an asylum, so things are always skimpy—at least in a poor asylum
like ours. I hate skimpy night-dresses. But one can dream just as well in them as in lovely trailing
ones, with frills around the neck, that's one consolation."
"Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I'll come back in a few minutes for the candle.
I daren't trust you to put it out yourself. You'd likely set the place on fire."
When Marilla had gone Anne looked around her wistfully. The whitewashed walls were so
painfully bare and staring that she thought they must ache over their own bareness. The floor was
bare, too, except for a round braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In
one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark, low-turned posts. In the other
corner was the aforesaid three-corner table adorned with a fat, red velvet pin-cushion hard enough
to turn the point of the most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six-by-eight mirror. Midway
between table and bed was the window, with an icy white muslin frill over it, and opposite it was the
wash-stand. The whole apartment was of a rigidity not to be described in words, but which sent a
shiver to the very marrow of Anne's bones. With a sob she hastily discarded her garments, put on
the skimpy nightgown and sprang into bed where she burrowed face downward into the pillow and
pulled the clothes over her head. When Marilla came up for the light various skimpy articles of
raiment scattered most untidily over the floor and a certain tempestuous appearance of the bed
were the only indications of any presence save her own.
She deliberately picked up Anne's clothes, placed them neatly on a prim yellow chair, and then,
taking up the candle, went over to the bed.
"Good night," she said, a little awkwardly, but not unkindly.
Anne's white face and big eyes appeared over the bedclothes with a startling suddenness.
"How can you call it a GOOD night when you know it must be the very worst night I've ever had?"
she said reproachfully.
Then she dived down into invisibility again.
Marilla went slowly down to the kitchen and proceeded to wash the supper dishes. Matthew was
smoking—a sure sign of perturbation of mind. He seldom smoked, for Marilla set her face against
it as a filthy habit; but at certain times and seasons he felt driven to it and them Marilla winked at
the practice, realizing that a mere man must have some vent for his emotions.
"Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish," she said wrathfully. "This is what comes of sending word
instead of going ourselves. Richard Spencer's folks have twisted that message somehow. One of
us will have to drive over and see Mrs. Spencer tomorrow, that's certain. This girl will have to be
sent back to the asylum."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Matthew reluctantly.
"You SUPPOSE so! Don't you know it?"
"Well now, she's a real nice little thing, Marilla. It's kind of a pity to send her back when she's so
set on staying here."
"Matthew Cuthbert, you don't mean to say you think we ought to keep her!"
Marilla's astonishment could not have been greater if Matthew had expressed a predilection for
standing on his head.
"Well, now, no, I suppose not—not exactly," stammered Matthew, uncomfortably driven into a
corner for his precise meaning. "I suppose—we could hardly be expected to keep her."
"I should say not. What good would she be to us?"
"We might be some good to her," said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly.
"Matthew Cuthbert, I believe that child has bewitched you! I can see as plain as plain that you
want to keep her."
"Well now, she's a real interesting little thing," persisted Matthew. "You should have heard her
talk coming from the station."
"Oh, she can talk fast enough. I saw that at once. It's nothing in her favour, either. I don't like
children who have so much to say. I don't want an orphan girl and if I did she isn't the style I'd pick
out. There's something I don't understand about her. No, she's got to be despatched straight-way
back to where she came from."
"I could hire a French boy to help me," said Matthew, "and she'd be company for you."
"I'm not suffering for company," said Marilla shortly. "And I'm not going to keep her."
"Well now, it's just as you say, of course, Marilla," said Matthew rising and putting his pipe away.
"I'm going to bed."
To bed went Matthew. And to bed, when she had put her dishes away, went Marilla, frowning
most resolutely. And up-stairs, in the east gable, a lonely, heart-hungry, friendless child cried herself
to sleep.
CHAPTER IV. Morning at Green Gables
It was broad daylight when Anne awoke and sat up in bed, staring confusedly at the window
through which a flood of cheery sunshine was pouring and outside of which something white and
feathery waved across glimpses of blue sky.
For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a delightful thrill, as
something very pleasant; then a horrible remembrance. This was Green Gables and they didn't
want her because she wasn't a boy!
But it was morning and, yes, it was a cherry-tree in full bloom outside of her window. With a
bound she was out of bed and across the floor. She pushed up the sash—it went up stiffly and
creakily, as if it hadn't been opened for a long time, which was the case; and it stuck so tight that
nothing was needed to hold it up.
Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyes glistening with
delight. Oh, wasn't it beautiful? Wasn't it a lovely place? Suppose she wasn't really going to stay
here! She would imagine she was. There was scope for imagination here.
A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was
so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big
orchard, one of apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms; and their
grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below were lilac-trees purple with flowers,
and their dizzily sweet fragrance drifted up to the window on the morning wind.
Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the hollow where the brook ran
and where scores of white birches grew, upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of
delightful possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it was a hill, green
and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap in it where the gray gable end of the little house
she had seen from the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible.
Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over green, low-sloping fields,
was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea.
Anne's beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily in. She had looked on so
many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever
dreamed.
She knelt there, lost to everything but the loveliness around her, until she was startled by a hand
on her shoulder. Marilla had come in unheard by the small dreamer.
"It's time you were dressed," she said curtly.
Marilla really did not know how to talk to the child, and her uncomfortable ignorance made her
crisp and curt when she did not mean to be.
Anne stood up and drew a long breath.
"Oh, isn't it wonderful?" she said, waving her hand comprehensively at the good world outside.
"It's a big tree," said Marilla, "and it blooms great, but the fruit don't amount to much never
—small and wormy."
"Oh, I don't mean just the tree; of course it's lovely—yes, it's RADIANTLY lovely—it blooms as if
it meant it—but I meant everything, the garden and the orchard and the brook and the woods, the
whole big dear world. Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this? And I can
hear the brook laughing all the way up here. Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks
are? They're always laughing. Even in winter-time I've heard them under the ice. I'm so glad there's
a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn't make any difference to me when you're
not going to keep me, but it does. I shall always like to remember that there is a brook at Green
Gables even if I never see it again. If there wasn't a brook I'd be HAUNTED by the uncomfortable
feeling that there ought to be one. I'm not in the depths of despair this morning. I never can be in
the morning. Isn't it a splendid thing that there are mornings? But I feel very sad. I've just been
imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I was to stay here for ever and ever. It
was a great comfort while it lasted. But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when
you have to stop and that hurts."
"You'd better get dressed and come down-stairs and never mind your imaginings," said Marilla
as soon as she could get a word in edgewise. "Breakfast is waiting. Wash your face and comb
your hair. Leave the window up and turn your bedclothes back over the foot of the bed. Be as
smart as you can."
Anne could evidently be smart to some purpose for she was down-stairs in ten minutes' time,
with her clothes neatly on, her hair brushed and braided, her face washed, and a comfortable
consciousness pervading her soul that she had fulfilled all Marilla's requirements. As a matter of
fact, however, she had forgotten to turn back the bedclothes.
"I'm pretty hungry this morning," she announced as she slipped into the chair Marilla placed for
her. "The world doesn't seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night. I'm so glad it's a
sunshiny morning. But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings are interesting, don't
you think? You don't know what's going to happen through the day, and there's so much scope for
imagination. But I'm glad it's not rainy today because it's easier to be cheerful and bear up under
affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good deal to bear up under. It's all very well to read
about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you
really come to have them, is it?"
"For pity's sake hold your tongue," said Marilla. "You talk entirely too much for a little girl."
Thereupon Anne held her tongue so obediently and thoroughly that her continued silence made
Marilla rather nervous, as if in the presence of something not exactly natural. Matthew also held his
tongue,—but this was natural,—so that the meal was a very silent one.
As it progressed Anne became more and more abstracted, eating mechanically, with her big
eyes fixed unswervingly and unseeingly on the sky outside the window. This made Marilla more
nervous than ever; she had an uncomfortable feeling that while this odd child's body might be there
at the table her spirit was far away in some remote airy cloudland, borne aloft on the wings of
imagination. Who would want such a child about the place?
Yet Matthew wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things! Marilla felt that he wanted it just as
much this morning as he had the night before, and that he would go on wanting it. That was
Matthew's way—take a whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent persistency
—a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its very silence than if he had talked it out.
When the meal was ended Anne came out of her reverie and offered to wash the dishes.
"Can you wash dishes right?" asked Marilla distrustfully.
"Pretty well. I'm better at looking after children, though. I've had so much experience at that. It's
such a pity you haven't any here for me to look after."
"I don't feel as if I wanted any more children to look after than I've got at present. YOU'RE
problem enough in all conscience. What's to be done with you I don't know. Matthew is a most
ridiculous man."
"I think he's lovely," said Anne reproachfully. "He is so very sympathetic. He didn't mind how
much I talked—he seemed to like it. I felt that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him."
"You're both queer enough, if that's what you mean by kindred spirits," said Marilla with a sniff.
"Yes, you may wash the dishes. Take plenty of hot water, and be sure you dry them well. I've got
enough to attend to this morning for I'll have to drive over to White Sands in the afternoon and see
Mrs. Spencer. You'll come with me and we'll settle what's to be done with you. After you've finished
the dishes go up-stairs and make your bed."
Anne washed the dishes deftly enough, as Marilla who kept a sharp eye on the process,
discerned. Later on she made her bed less successfully, for she had never learned the art of
wrestling with a feather tick. But is was done somehow and smoothed down; and then Marilla, to
get rid of her, told her she might go out-of-doors and amuse herself until dinner time.
Anne flew to the door, face alight, eyes glowing. On the very threshold she stopped short,
wheeled about, came back and sat down by the table, light and glow as effectually blotted out as if
some one had clapped an extinguisher on her.
"What's the matter now?" demanded Marilla.
"I don't dare go out," said Anne, in the tone of a martyr relinquishing all earthly joys. "If I can't stay
here there is no use in my loving Green Gables. And if I go out there and get acquainted with all
those trees and flowers and the orchard and the brook I'll not be able to help loving it. It's hard
enough now, so I won't make it any harder. I want to go out so much—everything seems to be
calling to me, 'Anne, Anne, come out to us. Anne, Anne, we want a playmate'—but it's better not.
There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And it's so hard to keep
from loving things, isn't it? That was why I was so glad when I thought I was going to live here. I
thought I'd have so many things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that brief dream is over. I am
resigned to my fate now, so I don't think I'll go out for fear I'll get unresigned again. What is the
name of that geranium on the window-sill, please?"
"That's the apple-scented geranium."
"Oh, I don't mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave it yourself. Didn't you give it a
name? May I give it one then? May I call it—let me see—Bonny would do—may I call it Bonny while
I'm here? Oh, do let me!"
"Goodness, I don't care. But where on earth is the sense of naming a geranium?"
"Oh, I like things to have handles even if they are only geraniums. It makes them seem more like
people. How do you know but that it hurts a geranium's feelings just to be called a geranium and
nothing else? You wouldn't like to be called nothing but a woman all the time. Yes, I shall call it
Bonny. I named that cherry-tree outside my bedroom window this morning. I called it Snow Queen
because it was so white. Of course, it won't always be in blossom, but one can imagine that it is,
can't one?"
"I never in all my life saw or heard anything to equal her," muttered Marilla, beating a retreat
down to the cellar after potatoes. "She is kind of interesting as Matthew says. I can feel already
that I'm wondering what on earth she'll say next. She'll be casting a spell over me, too. She's cast it
over Matthew. That look he gave me when he went out said everything he said or hinted last night
over again. I wish he was like other men and would talk things out. A body could answer back then
and argue him into reason. But what's to be done with a man who just LOOKS?"
Anne had relapsed into reverie, with her chin in her hands and her eyes on the sky, when Marilla
returned from her cellar pilgrimage. There Marilla left her until the early dinner was on the table.
"I suppose I can have the mare and buggy this afternoon, Matthew?" said Marilla.
Matthew nodded and looked wistfully at Anne. Marilla intercepted the look and said grimly:
"I'm going to drive over to White Sands and settle this thing. I'll take Anne with me and Mrs.
Spencer will probably make arrangements to send her back to Nova Scotia at once. I'll set your tea
out for you and I'll be home in time to milk the cows."
Still Matthew said nothing and Marilla had a sense of having wasted words and breath. There is
nothing more aggravating than a man who won't talk back—unless it is a woman who won't.
Matthew hitched the sorrel into the buggy in due time and Marilla and Anne set off. Matthew
opened the yard gate for them and as they drove slowly through, he said, to nobody in particular as
it seemed:
"Little Jerry Buote from the Creek was here this morning, and I told him I guessed I'd hire him for
the summer."
Marilla made no reply, but she hit the unlucky sorrel such a vicious clip with the whip that the fat
mare, unused to such treatment, whizzed indignantly down the lane at an alarming pace. Marilla
looked back once as the buggy bounced along and saw that aggravating Matthew leaning over the
gate, looking wistfully after them.
CHAPTER V. Anne's History
"Do you know," said Anne confidentially, "I've made up my mind to enjoy this drive. It's been my
experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of
course, you must make it up FIRMLY. I am not going to think about going back to the asylum while
we're having our drive. I'm just going to think about the drive. Oh, look, there's one little early wild
rose out! Isn't it lovely? Don't you think it must be glad to be a rose? Wouldn't it be nice if roses
could talk? I'm sure they could tell us such lovely things. And isn't pink the most bewitching color in
the world? I love it, but I can't wear it. Redheaded people can't wear pink, not even in imagination.
Did you ever know of anybody whose hair was red when she was young, but got to be another
color when she grew up?"
"No, I don't know as I ever did," said Marilla mercilessly, "and I shouldn't think it likely to happen
in your case either."
Anne sighed.
"Well, that is another hope gone. 'My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.' That's a
sentence I read in a book once, and I say it over to comfort myself whenever I'm disappointed in
anything."
"I don't see where the comforting comes in myself," said Marilla.
"Why, because it sounds so nice and romantic, just as if I were a heroine in a book, you know. I
am so fond of romantic things, and a graveyard full of buried hopes is about as romantic a thing as
one can imagine isn't it? I'm rather glad I have one. Are we going across the Lake of Shining
Waters today?"
"We're not going over Barry's pond, if that's what you mean by your Lake of Shining Waters.
We're going by the shore road."
"Shore road sounds nice," said Anne dreamily. "Is it as nice as it sounds? Just when you said
'shore road' I saw it in a picture in my mind, as quick as that! And White Sands is a pretty name,
too; but I don't like it as well as Avonlea. Avonlea is a lovely name. It just sounds like music. How far
is it to White Sands?"
"It's five miles; and as you're evidently bent on talking you might as well talk to some purpose by
telling me what you know about yourself."
"Oh, what I KNOW about myself isn't really worth telling," said Anne eagerly. "If you'll only let me
tell you what I IMAGINE about myself you'll think it ever so much more interesting."
"No, I don't want any of your imaginings. Just you stick to bald facts. Begin at the beginning.
Where were you born and how old are you?"
"I was eleven last March," said Anne, resigning herself to bald facts with a little sigh. "And I was
born in Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia. My father's name was Walter Shirley, and he was a teacher in
the Bolingbroke High School. My mother's name was Bertha Shirley. Aren't Walter and Bertha
lovely names? I'm so glad my parents had nice names. It would be a real disgrace to have a father
named—well, say Jedediah, wouldn't it?"
"I guess it doesn't matter what a person's name is as long as he behaves himself," said Marilla,
feeling herself called upon to inculcate a good and useful moral.
"Well, I don't know." Anne looked thoughtful. "I read in a book once that a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as
nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage. I suppose my father could have been a good man
even if he had been called Jedediah; but I'm sure it would have been a cross. Well, my mother was
a teacher in the High school, too, but when she married father she gave up teaching, of course. A
husband was enough responsibility. Mrs. Thomas said that they were a pair of babies and as poor
as church mice. They went to live in a weeny-teeny little yellow house in Bolingbroke. I've never
seen that house, but I've imagined it thousands of times. I think it must have had honeysuckle over
the parlor window and lilacs in the front yard and lilies of the valley just inside the gate. Yes, and
muslin curtains in all the windows. Muslin curtains give a house such an air. I was born in that
house. Mrs. Thomas said I was the homeliest baby she ever saw, I was so scrawny and tiny and
nothing but eyes, but that mother thought I was perfectly beautiful. I should think a mother would be
a better judge than a poor woman who came in to scrub, wouldn't you? I'm glad she was satisfied
with me anyhow, I would feel so sad if I thought I was a disappointment to her—because she didn't
live very long after that, you see. She died of fever when I was just three months old. I do wish she'd
lived long enough for me to remember calling her mother. I think it would be so sweet to say
'mother,' don't you? And father died four days afterwards from fever too. That left me an orphan and
folks were at their wits' end, so Mrs. Thomas said, what to do with me. You see, nobody wanted me
even then. It seems to be my fate. Father and mother had both come from places far away and it
was well known they hadn't any relatives living. Finally Mrs. Thomas said she'd take me, though she
was poor and had a drunken husband. She brought me up by hand. Do you know if there is
anything in being brought up by hand that ought to make people who are brought up that way better
than other people? Because whenever I was naughty Mrs. Thomas would ask me how I could be
such a bad girl when she had brought me up by hand—reproachful-like.
"Mr. and Mrs. Thomas moved away from Bolingbroke to Marysville, and I lived with them until I
was eight years old. I helped look after the Thomas children—there were four of them younger than
me—and I can tell you they took a lot of looking after. Then Mr. Thomas was killed falling under a
train and his mother offered to take Mrs. Thomas and the children, but she didn't want me. Mrs.
Thomas was at HER wits' end, so she said, what to do with me. Then Mrs. Hammond from up the
river came down and said she'd take me, seeing I was handy with children, and I went up the river
to live with her in a little clearing among the stumps. It was a very lonesome place. I'm sure I could
never have lived there if I hadn't had an imagination. Mr. Hammond worked a little sawmill up there,
and Mrs. Hammond had eight children. She had twins three times. I like babies in moderation, but
twins three times in succession is TOO MUCH. I told Mrs. Hammond so firmly, when the last pair
came. I used to get so dreadfully tired carrying them about.
"I lived up river with Mrs. Hammond over two years, and then Mr. Hammond died and Mrs.
Hammond broke up housekeeping. She divided her children among her relatives and went to the
States. I had to go to the asylum at Hopeton, because nobody would take me. They didn't want me
at the asylum, either; they said they were over-crowded as it was. But they had to take me and I
was there four months until Mrs. Spencer came."
Anne finished up with another sigh, of relief this time. Evidently she did not like talking about her
experiences in a world that had not wanted her.
"Did you ever go to school?" demanded Marilla, turning the sorrel mare down the shore road.
"Not a great deal. I went a little the last year I stayed with Mrs. Thomas. When I went up river we
were so far from a school that I couldn't walk it in winter and there was a vacation in summer, so I
could only go in the spring and fall. But of course I went while I was at the asylum. I can read pretty
well and I know ever so many pieces of poetry off by heart—'The Battle of Hohenlinden' and
'Edinburgh after Flodden,' and 'Bingen of the Rhine,' and most of the 'Lady of the Lake' and most
of 'The Seasons' by James Thompson. Don't you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up
and down your back? There is a piece in the Fifth Reader—'The Downfall of Poland'—that is just
full of thrills. Of course, I wasn't in the Fifth Reader—I was only in the Fourth—but the big girls used
to lend me theirs to read."
"Were those women—Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Hammond—good to you?" asked Marilla, looking
at Anne out of the corner of her eye.
"O-o-o-h," faltered Anne. Her sensitive little face suddenly flushed scarlet and embarrassment
sat on her brow. "Oh, they MEANT to be—I know they meant to be just as good and kind as
possible. And when people mean to be good to you, you don't mind very much when they're not
quite—always. They had a good deal to worry them, you know. It's very trying to have a drunken
husband, you see; and it must be very trying to have twins three times in succession, don't you
think? But I feel sure they meant to be good to me."
Marilla asked no more questions. Anne gave herself up to a silent rapture over the shore road
and Marilla guided the sorrel abstractedly while she pondered deeply. Pity was suddenly stirring in
her heart for the child. What a starved, unloved life she had had—a life of drudgery and poverty and
neglect; for Marilla was shrewd enough to read between the lines of Anne's history and divine the
truth. No wonder she had been so delighted at the prospect of a real home. It was a pity she had to
be sent back. What if she, Marilla, should indulge Matthew's unaccountable whim and let her stay?
He was set on it; and the child seemed a nice, teachable little thing.
"She's got too much to say," thought Marilla, "but she might be trained out of that. And there's
nothing rude or slangy in what she does say. She's ladylike. It's likely her people were nice folks."
The shore road was "woodsy and wild and lonesome." On the right hand, scrub firs, their spirits
quite unbroken by long years of tussle with the gulf winds, grew thickly. On the left were the steep
red sandstone cliffs, so near the track in places that a mare of less steadiness than the sorrel
might have tried the nerves of the people behind her. Down at the base of the cliffs were heaps of
surf-worn rocks or little sandy coves inlaid with pebbles as with ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea,
shimmering and blue, and over it soared the gulls, their pinions flashing silvery in the sunlight.
"Isn't the sea wonderful?" said Anne, rousing from a long, wide-eyed silence. "Once, when I lived
in Marysville, Mr. Thomas hired an express wagon and took us all to spend the day at the shore ten
miles away. I enjoyed every moment of that day, even if I had to look after the children all the time. I
lived it over in happy dreams for years. But this shore is nicer than the Marysville shore. Aren't
those gulls splendid? Would you like to be a gull? I think I would—that is, if I couldn't be a human
girl. Don't you think it would be nice to wake up at sunrise and swoop down over the water and
away out over that lovely blue all day; and then at night to fly back to one's nest? Oh, I can just
imagine myself doing it. What big house is that just ahead, please?"
"That's the White Sands Hotel. Mr. Kirke runs it, but the season hasn't begun yet. There are
heaps of Americans come there for the summer. They think this shore is just about right."
"I was afraid it might be Mrs. Spencer's place," said Anne mournfully. "I don't want to get there.
Somehow, it will seem like the end of everything."
CHAPTER VI. Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
Get there they did, however, in due season. Mrs. Spencer lived in a big yellow house at White
Sands Cove, and she came to the door with surprise and welcome mingled on her benevolent
face.
"Dear, dear," she exclaimed, "you're the last folks I was looking for today, but I'm real glad to see
you. You'll put your horse in? And how are you, Anne?"
"I'm as well as can be expected, thank you," said Anne smilelessly. A blight seemed to have
descended on her.
"I suppose we'll stay a little while to rest the mare," said Marilla, "but I promised Matthew I'd be
home early. The fact is, Mrs. Spencer, there's been a queer mistake somewhere, and I've come
over to see where it is. We send word, Matthew and I, for you to bring us a boy from the asylum.
We told your brother Robert to tell you we wanted a boy ten or eleven years old."
"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't say so!" said Mrs. Spencer in distress. "Why, Robert sent word down
by his daughter Nancy and she said you wanted a girl—didn't she Flora Jane?" appealing to her
daughter who had come out to the steps.
"She certainly did, Miss Cuthbert," corroborated Flora Jane earnestly.
"I'm dreadful sorry," said Mrs. Spencer. "It's too bad; but it certainly wasn't my fault, you see, Miss
Cuthbert. I did the best I could and I thought I was following your instructions. Nancy is a terrible
flighty thing. I've often had to scold her well for her heedlessness."
"It was our own fault," said Marilla resignedly. "We should have come to you ourselves and not
left an important message to be passed along by word of mouth in that fashion. Anyhow, the
mistake has been made and the only thing to do is to set it right. Can we send the child back to the
asylum? I suppose they'll take her back, won't they?"
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Spencer thoughtfully, "but I don't think it will be necessary to send her
back. Mrs. Peter Blewett was up here yesterday, and she was saying to me how much she wished
she'd sent by me for a little girl to help her. Mrs. Peter has a large family, you know, and she finds it
hard to get help. Anne will be the very girl for you. I call it positively providential."
Marilla did not look as if she thought Providence had much to do with the matter. Here was an
unexpectedly good chance to get this unwelcome orphan off her hands, and she did not even feel
grateful for it.
She knew Mrs. Peter Blewett only by sight as a small, shrewish-faced woman without an ounce
of superfluous flesh on her bones. But she had heard of her. "A terrible worker and driver," Mrs.
Peter was said to be; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and
stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt a qualm of conscience at the
thought of handing Anne over to her tender mercies.
"Well, I'll go in and we'll talk the matter over," she said.
"And if there isn't Mrs. Peter coming up the lane this blessed minute!" exclaimed Mrs. Spencer,
bustling her guests through the hall into the parlor, where a deadly chill struck on them as if the air
had been strained so long through dark green, closely drawn blinds that it had lost every particle of
warmth it had ever possessed. "That is real lucky, for we can settle the matter right away. Take the
armchair, Miss Cuthbert. Anne, you sit here on the ottoman and don't wiggle. Let me take your hats.
Flora Jane, go out and put the kettle on. Good afternoon, Mrs. Blewett. We were just saying how
fortunate it was you happened along. Let me introduce you two ladies. Mrs. Blewett, Miss Cuthbert.
Please excuse me for just a moment. I forgot to tell Flora Jane to take the buns out of the oven."
Mrs. Spencer whisked away, after pulling up the blinds. Anne sitting mutely on the ottoman, with
her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stared at Mrs Blewett as one fascinated. Was she to be given
into the keeping of this sharp-faced, sharp-eyed woman? She felt a lump coming up in her throat
and her eyes smarted painfully. She was beginning to be afraid she couldn't keep the tears back
when Mrs. Spencer returned, flushed and beaming, quite capable of taking any and every difficulty,
physical, mental or spiritual, into consideration and settling it out of hand.
"It seems there's been a mistake about this little girl, Mrs. Blewett," she said. "I was under the
impression that Mr. and Miss Cuthbert wanted a little girl to adopt. I was certainly told so. But it
seems it was a boy they wanted. So if you're still of the same mind you were yesterday, I think
she'll be just the thing for you."
Mrs. Blewett darted her eyes over Anne from head to foot.
"How old are you and what's your name?" she demanded.
"Anne Shirley," faltered the shrinking child, not daring to make any stipulations regarding the
spelling thereof, "and I'm eleven years old."
"Humph! You don't look as if there was much to you. But you're wiry. I don't know but the wiry
ones are the best after all. Well, if I take you you'll have to be a good girl, you know—good and
smart and respectful. I'll expect you to earn your keep, and no mistake about that. Yes, I suppose I
might as well take her off your hands, Miss Cuthbert. The baby's awful fractious, and I'm clean worn
out attending to him. If you like I can take her right home now."
Marilla looked at Anne and softened at sight of the child's pale face with its look of mute misery
—the misery of a helpless little creature who finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it
had escaped. Marilla felt an uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appeal of that look, it
would haunt her to her dying day. More-over, she did not fancy Mrs. Blewett. To hand a sensitive,
"highstrung" child over to such a woman! No, she could not take the responsibility of doing that!
"Well, I don't know," she said slowly. "I didn't say that Matthew and I had absolutely decided that
we wouldn't keep her. In fact I may say that Matthew is disposed to keep her. I just came over to
find out how the mistake had occurred. I think I'd better take her home again and talk it over with
Matthew. I feel that I oughtn't to decide on anything without consulting him. If we make up our mind
not to keep her we'll bring or send her over to you tomorrow night. If we don't you may know that
she is going to stay with us. Will that suit you, Mrs. Blewett?"
"I suppose it'll have to," said Mrs. Blewett ungraciously.
During Marilla's speech a sunrise had been dawning on Anne's face. First the look of despair
faded out; then came a faint flush of hope; here eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars. The
child was quite transfigured; and, a moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett went out in
quest of a recipe the latter had come to borrow she sprang up and flew across the room to Marilla.
"Oh, Miss Cuthbert, did you really say that perhaps you would let me stay at Green Gables?" she
said, in a breathless whisper, as if speaking aloud might shatter the glorious possibility. "Did you
really say it? Or did I only imagine that you did?"
"I think you'd better learn to control that imagination of yours, Anne, if you can't distinguish
between what is real and what isn't," said Marilla crossly. "Yes, you did hear me say just that and no
more. It isn't decided yet and perhaps we will conclude to let Mrs. Blewett take you after all. She
certainly needs you much more than I do."
"I'd rather go back to the asylum than go to live with her," said Anne passionately. "She looks
exactly like a—like a gimlet."
Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must be reproved for such a speech.
"A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady and a stranger," she said
severely. "Go back and sit down quietly and hold your tongue and behave as a good girl should."
"I'll try to do and be anything you want me, if you'll only keep me," said Anne, returning meekly to
her ottoman.
When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them in the lane. Marilla
from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessed his motive. She was prepared for the relief
she read in his face when he saw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she
said nothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in the yard behind the barn milking
the cows. Then she briefly told him Anne's history and the result of the interview with Mrs. Spencer.
"I wouldn't give a dog I liked to that Blewett woman," said Matthew with unusual vim.
"I don't fancy her style myself," admitted Marilla, "but it's that or keeping her ourselves, Matthew.
And since you seem to want her, I suppose I'm willing—or have to be. I've been thinking over the
idea until I've got kind of used to it. It seems a sort of duty. I've never brought up a child, especially
a girl, and I dare say I'll make a terrible mess of it. But I'll do my best. So far as I'm concerned,
Matthew, she may stay."
Matthew's shy face was a glow of delight.
"Well now, I reckoned you'd come to see it in that light, Marilla," he said. "She's such an
interesting little thing."
"It'd be more to the point if you could say she was a useful little thing," retorted Marilla, "but I'll
make it my business to see she's trained to be that. And mind, Matthew, you're not to go interfering
with my methods. Perhaps an old maid doesn't know much about bringing up a child, but I guess
she knows more than an old bachelor. So you just leave me to manage her. When I fail it'll be time
enough to put your oar in."
"There, there, Marilla, you can have your own way," said Matthew reassuringly. "Only be as good
and kind to her as you can without spoiling her. I kind of think she's one of the sort you can do
anything with if you only get her to love you."
Marilla sniffed, to express her contempt for Matthew's opinions concerning anything feminine,
and walked off to the dairy with the pails.
"I won't tell her tonight that she can stay," she reflected, as she strained the milk into the
creamers. "She'd be so excited that she wouldn't sleep a wink. Marilla Cuthbert, you're fairly in for
it. Did you ever suppose you'd see the day when you'd be adopting an orphan girl? It's surprising
enough; but not so surprising as that Matthew should be at the bottom of it, him that always
seemed to have such a mortal dread of little girls. Anyhow, we've decided on the experiment and
goodness only knows what will come of it."
CHAPTER VII. Anne Says Her Prayers
When Marilla took Anne up to bed that night she said stiffly:
"Now, Anne, I noticed last night that you threw your clothes all about the floor when you took them
off. That is a very untidy habit, and I can't allow it at all. As soon as you take off any article of
clothing fold it neatly and place it on the chair. I haven't any use at all for little girls who aren't neat."
"I was so harrowed up in my mind last night that I didn't think about my clothes at all," said Anne.
"I'll fold them nicely tonight. They always made us do that at the asylum. Half the time, though, I'd
forget, I'd be in such a hurry to get into bed nice and quiet and imagine things."
"You'll have to remember a little better if you stay here," admonished Marilla. "There, that looks
something like. Say your prayers now and get into bed."
"I never say any prayers," announced Anne.
Marilla looked horrified astonishment.
"Why, Anne, what do you mean? Were you never taught to say your prayers? God always wants
little girls to say their prayers. Don't you know who God is, Anne?"
"'God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness,
justice, goodness, and truth,'" responded Anne promptly and glibly.
Marilla looked rather relieved.
"So you do know something then, thank goodness! You're not quite a heathen. Where did you
learn that?"
"Oh, at the asylum Sunday-school. They made us learn the whole catechism. I liked it pretty well.
There's something splendid about some of the words. 'Infinite, eternal and unchangeable.' Isn't that
grand? It has such a roll to it—just like a big organ playing. You couldn't quite call it poetry, I
suppose, but it sounds a lot like it, doesn't it?"
"We're not talking about poetry, Anne—we are talking about saying your prayers. Don't you know
it's a terrible wicked thing not to say your prayers every night? I'm afraid you are a very bad little
girl."
"You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair," said Anne reproachfully. "People
who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is. Mrs. Thomas told me that God made my hair red
ON PURPOSE, and I've never cared about Him since. And anyhow I'd always be too tired at night
to bother saying prayers. People who have to look after twins can't be expected to say their
prayers. Now, do you honestly think they can?"
Marilla decided that Anne's religious training must be begun at once. Plainly there was no time
to be lost.
"You must say your prayers while you are under my roof, Anne."
"Why, of course, if you want me to," assented Anne cheerfully. "I'd do anything to oblige you. But
you'll have to tell me what to say for this once. After I get into bed I'll imagine out a real nice prayer
to say always. I believe that it will be quite interesting, now that I come to think of it."
"You must kneel down," said Marilla in embarrassment.
Anne knelt at Marilla's knee and looked up gravely.
"Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out
into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep, woods, and I'd look up into the sky—up—up
—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just
FEEL a prayer. Well, I'm ready. What am I to say?"
Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic,
"Now I lay me down to sleep." But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor
—which is simply another name for a sense of fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her
that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely
unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing bout God's love, since she had
never had it translated to her through the medium of human love.
"You're old enough to pray for yourself, Anne," she said finally. "Just thank God for your blessings
and ask Him humbly for the things you want."
"Well, I'll do my best," promised Anne, burying her face in Marilla's lap. "Gracious heavenly
Father—that's the way the ministers say it in church, so I suppose it's all right in private prayer, isn't
it?" she interjected, lifting her head for a moment.

"Gracious heavenly Father, I thank Thee for the White


Way of Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters and Bonny
and the Snow Queen. I'm really extremely grateful for
them. And that's all the blessings I can think of just
now to thank Thee for. As for the things I want,
they're so numerous that it would take a great deal of
time to name them all so I will only mention the two
most important. Please let me stay at Green Gables;
and please let me be good-looking when I grow up.
I remain,
"Yours respectfully,
Anne Shirley.

"There, did I do all right?" she asked eagerly, getting up. "I could have made it much more
flowery if I'd had a little more time to think it over."
Poor Marilla was only preserved from complete collapse by remembering that it was not
irreverence, but simply spiritual ignorance on the part of Anne that was responsible for this
extraordinary petition. She tucked the child up in bed, mentally vowing that she should be taught a
prayer the very next day, and was leaving the room with the light when Anne called her back.
"I've just thought of it now. I should have said, 'Amen' in place of 'yours respectfully,' shouldn't I?
—the way the ministers do. I'd forgotten it, but I felt a prayer should be finished off in some way, so I
put in the other. Do you suppose it will make any difference?"
"I—I don't suppose it will," said Marilla. "Go to sleep now like a good child. Good night."
"I can only say good night tonight with a clear conscience," said Anne, cuddling luxuriously down
among her pillows.
Marilla retreated to the kitchen, set the candle firmly on the table, and glared at Matthew.
"Matthew Cuthbert, it's about time somebody adopted that child and taught her something. She's
next door to a perfect heathen. Will you believe that she never said a prayer in her life till tonight? I'll
send her to the manse tomorrow and borrow the Peep of the Day series, that's what I'll do. And she
shall go to Sunday-school just as soon as I can get some suitable clothes made for her. I foresee
that I shall have my hands full. Well, well, we can't get through this world without our share of trouble.
I've had a pretty easy life of it so far, but my time has come at last and I suppose I'll just have to
make the best of it."
CHAPTER VIII. Anne's Bringing-up Is Begun
For reasons best known to herself, Marilla did not tell Anne that she was to stay at Green Gables
until the next afternoon. During the forenoon she kept the child busy with various tasks and watched
over her with a keen eye while she did them. By noon she had concluded that Anne was smart and
obedient, willing to work and quick to learn; her most serious shortcoming seemed to be a
tendency to fall into daydreams in the middle of a task and forget all about it until such time as she
was sharply recalled to earth by a reprimand or a catastrophe.
When Anne had finished washing the dinner dishes she suddenly confronted Marilla with the air
and expression of one desperately determined to learn the worst. Her thin little body trembled from
head to foot; her face flushed and her eyes dilated until they were almost black; she clasped her
hands tightly and said in an imploring voice:
"Oh, please, Miss Cuthbert, won't you tell me if you are going to send me away or not? I've tried
to be patient all the morning, but I really feel that I cannot bear not knowing any longer. It's a dreadful
feeling. Please tell me."
"You haven't scalded the dishcloth in clean hot water as I told you to do," said Marilla immovably.
"Just go and do it before you ask any more questions, Anne."
Anne went and attended to the dishcloth. Then she returned to Marilla and fastened imploring
eyes of the latter's face. "Well," said Marilla, unable to find any excuse for deferring her explanation
longer, "I suppose I might as well tell you. Matthew and I have decided to keep you—that is, if you
will try to be a good little girl and show yourself grateful. Why, child, whatever is the matter?"
"I'm crying," said Anne in a tone of bewilderment. "I can't think why. I'm glad as glad can be. Oh,
GLAD doesn't seem the right word at all. I was glad about the White Way and the cherry blossoms
—but this! Oh, it's something more than glad. I'm so happy. I'll try to be so good. It will be uphill
work, I expect, for Mrs. Thomas often told me I was desperately wicked. However, I'll do my very
best. But can you tell me why I'm crying?"
"I suppose it's because you're all excited and worked up," said Marilla disapprovingly. "Sit down
on that chair and try to calm yourself. I'm afraid you both cry and laugh far too easily. Yes, you can
stay here and we will try to do right by you. You must go to school; but it's only a fortnight till vacation
so it isn't worth while for you to start before it opens again in September."
"What am I to call you?" asked Anne. "Shall I always say Miss Cuthbert? Can I call you Aunt
Marilla?"
"No; you'll call me just plain Marilla. I'm not used to being called Miss Cuthbert and it would make
me nervous."
"It sounds awfully disrespectful to just say Marilla," protested Anne.
"I guess there'll be nothing disrespectful in it if you're careful to speak respectfully. Everybody,
young and old, in Avonlea calls me Marilla except the minister. He says Miss Cuthbert—when he
thinks of it."
"I'd love to call you Aunt Marilla," said Anne wistfully. "I've never had an aunt or any relation at all
—not even a grandmother. It would make me feel as if I really belonged to you. Can't I call you Aunt
Marilla?"
"No. I'm not your aunt and I don't believe in calling people names that don't belong to them."
"But we could imagine you were my aunt."
"I couldn't," said Marilla grimly.
"Do you never imagine things different from what they really are?" asked Anne wide-eyed.
"No."
"Oh!" Anne drew a long breath. "Oh, Miss—Marilla, how much you miss!"
"I don't believe in imagining things different from what they really are," retorted Marilla. "When the
Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn't mean for us to imagine them away. And that
reminds me. Go into the sitting room, Anne—be sure your feet are clean and don't let any flies in
—and bring me out the illustrated card that's on the mantelpiece. The Lord's Prayer is on it and
you'll devote your spare time this afternoon to learning it off by heart. There's to be no more of such
praying as I heard last night."
"I suppose I was very awkward," said Anne apologetically, "but then, you see, I'd never had any
practice. You couldn't really expect a person to pray very well the first time she tried, could you? I
thought out a splendid prayer after I went to bed, just as I promised you I would. It was nearly as
long as a minister's and so poetical. But would you believe it? I couldn't remember one word when I
woke up this morning. And I'm afraid I'll never be able to think out another one as good. Somehow,
things never are so good when they're thought out a second time. Have you ever noticed that?"
"Here is something for you to notice, Anne. When I tell you to do a thing I want you to obey me at
once and not stand stock-still and discourse about it. Just you go and do as I bid you."
Anne promptly departed for the sitting-room across the hall; she failed to return; after waiting ten
minutes Marilla laid down her knitting and marched after her with a grim expression. She found
Anne standing motionless before a picture hanging on the wall between the two windows, with her
eyes astar with dreams. The white and green light strained through apple trees and clustering
vines outside fell over the rapt little figure with a half-unearthly radiance.
"Anne, whatever are you thinking of?" demanded Marilla sharply.
Anne came back to earth with a start.
"That," she said, pointing to the picture—a rather vivid chromo entitled, "Christ Blessing Little
Children"—"and I was just imagining I was one of them—that I was the little girl in the blue dress,
standing off by herself in the corner as if she didn't belong to anybody, like me. She looks lonely
and sad, don't you think? I guess she hadn't any father or mother of her own. But she wanted to be
blessed, too, so she just crept shyly up on the outside of the crowd, hoping nobody would notice
her—except Him. I'm sure I know just how she felt. Her heart must have beat and her hands must
have got cold, like mine did when I asked you if I could stay. She was afraid He mightn't notice her.
But it's likely He did, don't you think? I've been trying to imagine it all out—her edging a little nearer
all the time until she was quite close to Him; and then He would look at her and put His hand on her
hair and oh, such a thrill of joy as would run over her! But I wish the artist hadn't painted Him so
sorrowful looking. All His pictures are like that, if you've noticed. But I don't believe He could really
have looked so sad or the children would have been afraid of Him."
"Anne," said Marilla, wondering why she had not broken into this speech long before, "you
shouldn't talk that way. It's irreverent—positively irreverent."
Anne's eyes marveled.
"Why, I felt just as reverent as could be. I'm sure I didn't mean to be irreverent."
"Well I don't suppose you did—but it doesn't sound right to talk so familiarly about such things.
And another thing, Anne, when I send you after something you're to bring it at once and not fall into
mooning and imagining before pictures. Remember that. Take that card and come right to the
kitchen. Now, sit down in the corner and learn that prayer off by heart."
Anne set the card up against the jugful of apple blossoms she had brought in to decorate the
dinner-table—Marilla had eyed that decoration askance, but had said nothing—propped her chin
on her hands, and fell to studying it intently for several silent minutes.
"I like this," she announced at length. "It's beautiful. I've heard it before—I heard the
superintendent of the asylum Sunday school say it over once. But I didn't like it then. He had such a
cracked voice and he prayed it so mournfully. I really felt sure he thought praying was a
disagreeable duty. This isn't poetry, but it makes me feel just the same way poetry does. 'Our
Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name.' That is just like a line of music. Oh, I'm so glad
you thought of making me learn this, Miss—Marilla."
"Well, learn it and hold your tongue," said Marilla shortly.
Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft kiss on a pink-cupped
bud, and then studied diligently for some moments longer.
"Marilla," she demanded presently, "do you think that I shall ever have a bosom friend in
Avonlea?"
"A—a what kind of friend?"
"A bosom friend—an intimate friend, you know—a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my
inmost soul. I've dreamed of meeting her all my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of
my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think it's
possible?"
"Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she's about your age. She's a very nice little girl,
and perhaps she will be a playmate for you when she comes home. She's visiting her aunt over at
Carmody just now. You'll have to be careful how you behave yourself, though. Mrs. Barry is a very
particular woman. She won't let Diana play with any little girl who isn't nice and good."
Anne looked at Marilla through the apple blossoms, her eyes aglow with interest.
"What is Diana like? Her hair isn't red, is it? Oh, I hope not. It's bad enough to have red hair
myself, but I positively couldn't endure it in a bosom friend."
"Diana is a very pretty little girl. She has black eyes and hair and rosy cheeks. And she is good
and smart, which is better than being pretty."
Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland, and was firmly convinced that one
should be tacked on to every remark made to a child who was being brought up.
But Anne waved the moral inconsequently aside and seized only on the delightful possibilities
before it.
"Oh, I'm so glad she's pretty. Next to being beautiful oneself—and that's impossible in my case
—it would be best to have a beautiful bosom friend. When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a
bookcase in her sitting room with glass doors. There weren't any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept her
best china and her preserves there—when she had any preserves to keep. One of the doors was
broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was slightly intoxicated. But the other was
whole and I used to pretend that my reflection in it was another little girl who lived in it. I called her
Katie Maurice, and we were very intimate. I used to talk to her by the hour, especially on Sunday,
and tell her everything. Katie was the comfort and consolation of my life. We used to pretend that
the bookcase was enchanted and that if I only knew the spell I could open the door and step right
into the room where Katie Maurice lived, instead of into Mrs. Thomas' shelves of preserves and
china. And then Katie Maurice would have taken me by the hand and led me out into a wonderful
place, all flowers and sunshine and fairies, and we would have lived there happy for ever after.
When I went to live with Mrs. Hammond it just broke my heart to leave Katie Maurice. She felt it
dreadfully, too, I know she did, for she was crying when she kissed me good-bye through the
bookcase door. There was no bookcase at Mrs. Hammond's. But just up the river a little way from
the house there was a long green little valley, and the loveliest echo lived there. It echoed back
every word you said, even if you didn't talk a bit loud. So I imagined that it was a little girl called
Violetta and we were great friends and I loved her almost as well as I loved Katie Maurice—not
quite, but almost, you know. The night before I went to the asylum I said good-bye to Violetta, and
oh, her good-bye came back to me in such sad, sad tones. I had become so attached to her that I
hadn't the heart to imagine a bosom friend at the asylum, even if there had been any scope for
imagination there."
"I think it's just as well there wasn't," said Marilla drily. "I don't approve of such goings-on. You
seem to half believe your own imaginations. It will be well for you to have a real live friend to put
such nonsense out of your head. But don't let Mrs. Barry hear you talking about your Katie
Maurices and your Violettas or she'll think you tell stories."
"Oh, I won't. I couldn't talk of them to everybody—their memories are too sacred for that. But I
thought I'd like to have you know about them. Oh, look, here's a big bee just tumbled out of an
apple blossom. Just think what a lovely place to live—in an apple blossom! Fancy going to sleep in
it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn't a human girl I think I'd like to be a bee and live among the
flowers."
"Yesterday you wanted to be a sea gull," sniffed Marilla. "I think you are very fickle minded. I told
you to learn that prayer and not talk. But it seems impossible for you to stop talking if you've got
anybody that will listen to you. So go up to your room and learn it."
"Oh, I know it pretty nearly all now—all but just the last line."
"Well, never mind, do as I tell you. Go to your room and finish learning it well, and stay there until I
call you down to help me get tea."
"Can I take the apple blossoms with me for company?" pleaded Anne.
"No; you don't want your room cluttered up with flowers. You should have left them on the tree in
the first place."
"I did feel a little that way, too," said Anne. "I kind of felt I shouldn't shorten their lovely lives by
picking them—I wouldn't want to be picked if I were an apple blossom. But the temptation was
IRRESISTIBLE. What do you do when you meet with an irresistible temptation?"
"Anne, did you hear me tell you to go to your room?"
Anne sighed, retreated to the east gable, and sat down in a chair by the window.
"There—I know this prayer. I learned that last sentence coming upstairs. Now I'm going to
imagine things into this room so that they'll always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white
velvet carpet with pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at the windows. The walls
are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. The furniture is mahogany. I never saw any
mahogany, but it does sound SO luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken
cushions, pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. I can see my
reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall. I am tall and regal, clad in a gown of
trailing white lace, with a pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my hair. My hair is of midnight
darkness and my skin is a clear ivory pallor. My name is the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. No, it isn't—I
can't make THAT seem real."
She danced up to the little looking-glass and peered into it. Her pointed freckled face and
solemn gray eyes peered back at her.
"You're only Anne of Green Gables," she said earnestly, "and I see you, just as you are looking
now, whenever I try to imagine I'm the Lady Cordelia. But it's a million times nicer to be Anne of
Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn't it?"
She bent forward, kissed her reflection affectionately, and betook herself to the open window.
"Dear Snow Queen, good afternoon. And good afternoon dear birches down in the hollow. And
good afternoon, dear gray house up on the hill. I wonder if Diana is to be my bosom friend. I hope
she will, and I shall love her very much. But I must never quite forget Katie Maurice and Violetta.
They would feel so hurt if I did and I'd hate to hurt anybody's feelings, even a little bookcase girl's or
a little echo girl's. I must be careful to remember them and send them a kiss every day."
Anne blew a couple of airy kisses from her fingertips past the cherry blossoms and then, with her
chin in her hands, drifted luxuriously out on a sea of daydreams.
CHAPTER IX. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified
Anne had been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs. Lynde arrived to inspect her. Mrs.
Rachel, to do her justice, was not to blame for this. A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe
had confined that good lady to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables.
Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for people who were; but grippe,
she asserted, was like no other illness on earth and could only be interpreted as one of the special
visitations of Providence. As soon as her doctor allowed her to put her foot out-of-doors she
hurried up to Green Gables, bursting with curiosity to see Matthew and Marilla's orphan,
concerning whom all sorts of stories and suppositions had gone abroad in Avonlea.
Anne had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight. Already she was acquainted
with every tree and shrub about the place. She had discovered that a lane opened out below the
apple orchard and ran up through a belt of woodland; and she had explored it to its furthest end in
all its delicious vagaries of brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild cherry arch, corners thick with
fern, and branching byways of maple and mountain ash.
She had made friends with the spring down in the hollow—that wonderful deep, clear icy-cold
spring; it was set about with smooth red sandstones and rimmed in by great palm-like clumps of
water fern; and beyond it was a log bridge over the brook.
That bridge led Anne's dancing feet up over a wooded hill beyond, where perpetual twilight
reigned under the straight, thick-growing firs and spruces; the only flowers there were myriads of
delicate "June bells," those shyest and sweetest of woodland blooms, and a few pale, aerial
starflowers, like the spirits of last year's blossoms. Gossamers glimmered like threads of silver
among the trees and the fir boughs and tassels seemed to utter friendly speech.
All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the odd half hours which she was
allowed for play, and Anne talked Matthew and Marilla half-deaf over her discoveries. Not that
Matthew complained, to be sure; he listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his
face; Marilla permitted the "chatter" until she found herself becoming too interested in it,
whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a curt command to hold her tongue.
Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came, wandering at her own sweet will through
the lush, tremulous grasses splashed with ruddy evening sunshine; so that good lady had an
excellent chance to talk her illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with such
evident enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must bring its compensations. When details
were exhausted Mrs. Rachel introduced the real reason of her call.
"I've been hearing some surprising things about you and Matthew."
"I don't suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself," said Marilla. "I'm getting over my
surprise now."
"It was too bad there was such a mistake," said Mrs. Rachel sympathetically. "Couldn't you have
sent her back?"
"I suppose we could, but we decided not to. Matthew took a fancy to her. And I must say I like her
myself—although I admit she has her faults. The house seems a different place already. She's a
real bright little thing."
Marilla said more than she had intended to say when she began, for she read disapproval in
Mrs. Rachel's expression.
"It's a great responsibility you've taken on yourself," said that lady gloomily, "especially when
you've never had any experience with children. You don't know much about her or her real
disposition, I suppose, and there's no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But I don't want to
discourage you I'm sure, Marilla."
"I'm not feeling discouraged," was Marilla's dry response, "when I make up my mind to do a thing
it stays made up. I suppose you'd like to see Anne. I'll call her in."
Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her orchard rovings; but,
abashed at finding the delight herself in the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted
confusedly inside the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short tight wincey
dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her
freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into
over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment.
"Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain," was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's
emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride
themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor. "She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla.
Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles?
And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say."
Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the
kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her
whole slender form trembling from head to foot.
"I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. "I hate you—I hate you—I
hate you—" a louder stamp with each assertion of hatred. "How dare you call me skinny and ugly?
How dare you say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!"
"Anne!" exclaimed Marilla in consternation.
But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched,
passionate indignation exhaling from her like an atmosphere.
"How dare you say such things about me?" she repeated vehemently. "How would you like to
have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and
probably hadn't a spark of imagination in you? I don't care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so! I
hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before even by Mrs. Thomas'
intoxicated husband. And I'll NEVER forgive you for it, never, never!"
Stamp! Stamp!
"Did anybody ever see such a temper!" exclaimed the horrified Mrs. Rachel.
"Anne go to your room and stay there until I come up," said Marilla, recovering her powers of
speech with difficulty.
Anne, bursting into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until the tins on the porch wall
outside rattled in sympathy, and fled through the hall and up the stairs like a whirlwind. A subdued
slam above told that the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence.
"Well, I don't envy you your job bringing THAT up, Marilla," said Mrs. Rachel with unspeakable
solemnity.
Marilla opened her lips to say she knew not what of apology or deprecation. What she did say
was a surprise to herself then and ever afterwards.
"You shouldn't have twitted her about her looks, Rachel."
"Marilla Cuthbert, you don't mean to say that you are upholding her in such a terrible display of
temper as we've just seen?" demanded Mrs. Rachel indignantly.
"No," said Marilla slowly, "I'm not trying to excuse her. She's been very naughty and I'll have to
give her a talking to about it. But we must make allowances for her. She's never been taught what
is right. And you WERE too hard on her, Rachel."
Marilla could not help tacking on that last sentence, although she was again surprised at herself
for doing it. Mrs. Rachel got up with an air of offended dignity.
"Well, I see that I'll have to be very careful what I say after this, Marilla, since the fine feelings of
orphans, brought from goodness knows where, have to be considered before anything else. Oh,
no, I'm not vexed—don't worry yourself. I'm too sorry for you to leave any room for anger in my mind.
You'll have your own troubles with that child. But if you'll take my advice—which I suppose you won't
do, although I've brought up ten children and buried two—you'll do that 'talking to' you mention with
a fair-sized birch switch. I should think THAT would be the most effective language for that kind of a
child. Her temper matches her hair I guess. Well, good evening, Marilla. I hope you'll come down to
see me often as usual. But you can't expect me to visit here again in a hurry, if I'm liable to be flown
at and insulted in such a fashion. It's something new in MY experience."
Whereat Mrs. Rachel swept out and away—if a fat woman who always waddled COULD be said
to sweep away—and Marilla with a very solemn face betook herself to the east gable.
On the way upstairs she pondered uneasily as to what she ought to do. She felt no little dismay
over the scene that had just been enacted. How unfortunate that Anne should have displayed such
temper before Mrs. Rachel Lynde, of all people! Then Marilla suddenly became aware of an
uncomfortable and rebuking consciousness that she felt more humiliation over this than sorrow
over the discovery of such a serious defect in Anne's disposition. And how was she to punish her?
The amiable suggestion of the birch switch—to the efficiency of which all of Mrs. Rachel's own
children could have borne smarting testimony—did not appeal to Marilla. She did not believe she
could whip a child. No, some other method of punishment must be found to bring Anne to a proper
realization of the enormity of her offense.
Marilla found Anne face downward on her bed, crying bitterly, quite oblivious of muddy boots on
a clean counterpane.
"Anne," she said not ungently.
No answer.
"Anne," with greater severity, "get off that bed this minute and listen to what I have to say to you."
Anne squirmed off the bed and sat rigidly on a chair beside it, her face swollen and tear-stained
and her eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor.
"This is a nice way for you to behave. Anne! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"She hadn't any right to call me ugly and redheaded," retorted Anne, evasive and defiant.
"You hadn't any right to fly into such a fury and talk the way you did to her, Anne. I was ashamed
of you—thoroughly ashamed of you. I wanted you to behave nicely to Mrs. Lynde, and instead of
that you have disgraced me. I'm sure I don't know why you should lose your temper like that just
because Mrs. Lynde said you were red-haired and homely. You say it yourself often enough."
"Oh, but there's such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say
it," wailed Anne. "You may know a thing is so, but you can't help hoping other people don't quite
think it is. I suppose you think I have an awful temper, but I couldn't help it. When she said those
things something just rose right up in me and choked me. I HAD to fly out at her."
"Well, you made a fine exhibition of yourself I must say. Mrs. Lynde will have a nice story to tell
about you everywhere—and she'll tell it, too. It was a dreadful thing for you to lose your temper like
that, Anne."
"Just imagine how you would feel if somebody told you to your face that you were skinny and
ugly," pleaded Anne tearfully.
An old remembrance suddenly rose up before Marilla. She had been a very small child when she
had heard one aunt say of her to another, "What a pity she is such a dark, homely little thing."
Marilla was every day of fifty before the sting had gone out of that memory.
"I don't say that I think Mrs. Lynde was exactly right in saying what she did to you, Anne," she
admitted in a softer tone. "Rachel is too outspoken. But that is no excuse for such behavior on your
part. She was a stranger and an elderly person and my visitor—all three very good reasons why
you should have been respectful to her. You were rude and saucy and"—Marilla had a saving
inspiration of punishment—"you must go to her and tell her you are very sorry for your bad temper
and ask her to forgive you."
"I can never do that," said Anne determinedly and darkly. "You can punish me in any way you like,
Marilla. You can shut me up in a dark, damp dungeon inhabited by snakes and toads and feed me
only on bread and water and I shall not complain. But I cannot ask Mrs. Lynde to forgive me."
"We're not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp dungeons," said Marilla drily,
"especially as they're rather scarce in Avonlea. But apologize to Mrs. Lynde you must and shall and
you'll stay here in your room until you can tell me you're willing to do it."
"I shall have to stay here forever then," said Anne mournfully, "because I can't tell Mrs. Lynde I'm
sorry I said those things to her. How can I? I'm NOT sorry. I'm sorry I've vexed you; but I'm GLAD I
told her just what I did. It was a great satisfaction. I can't say I'm sorry when I'm not, can I? I can't
even IMAGINE I'm sorry."
"Perhaps your imagination will be in better working order by the morning," said Marilla, rising to
depart. "You'll have the night to think over your conduct in and come to a better frame of mind. You
said you would try to be a very good girl if we kept you at Green Gables, but I must say it hasn't
seemed very much like it this evening."
Leaving this Parthian shaft to rankle in Anne's stormy bosom, Marilla descended to the kitchen,
grievously troubled in mind and vexed in soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne,
because, whenever she recalled Mrs. Rachel's dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched with
amusement and she felt a most reprehensible desire to laugh.
CHAPTER X. Anne's Apology
Marilla said nothing to Matthew about the affair that evening; but when Anne proved still
refractory the next morning an explanation had to be made to account for her absence from the
breakfast table. Marilla told Matthew the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense
of the enormity of Anne's behavior.
"It's a good thing Rachel Lynde got a calling down; she's a meddlesome old gossip," was
Matthew's consolatory rejoinder.
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm astonished at you. You know that Anne's behavior was dreadful, and yet
you take her part! I suppose you'll be saying next thing that she oughtn't to be punished at all!"
"Well now—no—not exactly," said Matthew uneasily. "I reckon she ought to be punished a little.
But don't be too hard on her, Marilla. Recollect she hasn't ever had anyone to teach her right. You're
—you're going to give her something to eat, aren't you?"
"When did you ever hear of me starving people into good behavior?" demanded Marilla
indignantly. "She'll have her meals regular, and I'll carry them up to her myself. But she'll stay up
there until she's willing to apologize to Mrs. Lynde, and that's final, Matthew."
Breakfast, dinner, and supper were very silent meals—for Anne still remained obdurate. After
each meal Marilla carried a well-filled tray to the east gable and brought it down later on not
noticeably depleted. Matthew eyed its last descent with a troubled eye. Had Anne eaten anything at
all?
When Marilla went out that evening to bring the cows from the back pasture, Matthew, who had
been hanging about the barns and watching, slipped into the house with the air of a burglar and
crept upstairs. As a general thing Matthew gravitated between the kitchen and the little bedroom
off the hall where he slept; once in a while he ventured uncomfortably into the parlor or sitting room
when the minister came to tea. But he had never been upstairs in his own house since the spring
he helped Marilla paper the spare bedroom, and that was four years ago.
He tiptoed along the hall and stood for several minutes outside the door of the east gable before
he summoned courage to tap on it with his fingers and then open the door to peep in.
Anne was sitting on the yellow chair by the window gazing mournfully out into the garden. Very
small and unhappy she looked, and Matthew's heart smote him. He softly closed the door and
tiptoed over to her.
"Anne," he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard, "how are you making it, Anne?"
Anne smiled wanly.
"Pretty well. I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time. Of course, it's rather
lonesome. But then, I may as well get used to that."
Anne smiled again, bravely facing the long years of solitary imprisonment before her.
Matthew recollected that he must say what he had come to say without loss of time, lest Marilla
return prematurely. "Well now, Anne, don't you think you'd better do it and have it over with?" he
whispered. "It'll have to be done sooner or later, you know, for Marilla's a dreadful deter-mined
woman—dreadful determined, Anne. Do it right off, I say, and have it over."
"Do you mean apologize to Mrs. Lynde?"
"Yes—apologize—that's the very word," said Matthew eagerly. "Just smooth it over so to speak.
That's what I was trying to get at."
"I suppose I could do it to oblige you," said Anne thoughtfully. "It would be true enough to say I am
sorry, because I AM sorry now. I wasn't a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed
mad all night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just furious every time. But this
morning it was over. I wasn't in a temper anymore—and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt
so ashamed of myself. But I just couldn't think of going and telling Mrs. Lynde so. It would be so
humiliating. I made up my mind I'd stay shut up here forever rather than do that. But still—I'd do
anything for you—if you really want me to—"
"Well now, of course I do. It's terrible lonesome downstairs without you. Just go and smooth
things over—that's a good girl."
"Very well," said Anne resignedly. "I'll tell Marilla as soon as she comes in I've repented."
"That's right—that's right, Anne. But don't tell Marilla I said anything about it. She might think I
was putting my oar in and I promised not to do that."
"Wild horses won't drag the secret from me," promised Anne solemnly. "How would wild horses
drag a secret from a person anyhow?"
But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to the remotest corner of the
horse pasture lest Marilla should suspect what he had been up to. Marilla herself, upon her return to
the house, was agreeably surprised to hear a plaintive voice calling, "Marilla" over the banisters.
"Well?" she said, going into the hall.
"I'm sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I'm willing to go and tell Mrs. Lynde so."
"Very well." Marilla's crispness gave no sign of her relief. She had been wondering what under
the canopy she should do if Anne did not give in. "I'll take you down after milking."
Accordingly, after milking, behold Marilla and Anne walking down the lane, the former erect and
triumphant, the latter drooping and dejected. But halfway down Anne's dejection vanished as if by
enchantment. She lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the sunset sky and
an air of subdued exhilaration about her. Marilla beheld the change disapprovingly. This was no
meek penitent such as it behooved her to take into the presence of the offended Mrs. Lynde.
"What are you thinking of, Anne?" she asked sharply.
"I'm imagining out what I must say to Mrs. Lynde," answered Anne dreamily.
This was satisfactory—or should have been so. But Marilla could not rid herself of the notion that
something in her scheme of punishment was going askew. Anne had no business to look so rapt
and radiant.
Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they were in the very presence of Mrs. Lynde, who was
sitting knitting by her kitchen window. Then the radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared
on every feature. Before a word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the
astonished Mrs. Rachel and held out her hands beseechingly.
"Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry," she said with a quiver in her voice. "I could never
express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved
terribly to you—and I've disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have let me stay at
Green Gables although I'm not a boy. I'm a dreadfully wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to
be punished and cast out by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a
temper because you told me the truth. It WAS the truth; every word you said was true. My hair is red
and I'm freckled and skinny and ugly. What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't have said it.
Oh, Mrs. Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong sorrow on a poor little
orphan girl, would you, even if she had a dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn't. Please say
you forgive me, Mrs. Lynde."
Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word of judgment.
There was no mistaking her sincerity—it breathed in every tone of her voice. Both Marilla and
Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring. But the former under-stood in dismay that Anne was
actually enjoying her valley of humiliation—was reveling in the thoroughness of her abasement.
Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla, had plumed herself? Anne had
turned it into a species of positive pleasure.
Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception, did not see this. She only perceived
that Anne had made a very thorough apology and all resentment vanished from her kindly, if
somewhat officious, heart.
"There, there, get up, child," she said heartily. "Of course I forgive you. I guess I was a little too
hard on you, anyway. But I'm such an outspoken person. You just mustn't mind me, that's what. It
can't be denied your hair is terrible red; but I knew a girl once—went to school with her, in fact
—whose hair was every mite as red as yours when she was young, but when she grew up it
darkened to a real handsome auburn. I wouldn't be a mite surprised if yours did, too—not a mite."
"Oh, Mrs. Lynde!" Anne drew a long breath as she rose to her feet. "You have given me a hope. I
shall always feel that you are a benefactor. Oh, I could endure anything if I only thought my hair
would be a handsome auburn when I grew up. It would be so much easier to be good if one's hair
was a handsome auburn, don't you think? And now may I go out into your garden and sit on that
bench under the apple-trees while you and Marilla are talking? There is so much more scope for
imagination out there."
"Laws, yes, run along, child. And you can pick a bouquet of them white June lilies over in the
corner if you like."
As the door closed behind Anne Mrs. Lynde got briskly up to light a lamp.
"She's a real odd little thing. Take this chair, Marilla; it's easier than the one you've got; I just keep
that for the hired boy to sit on. Yes, she certainly is an odd child, but there is something kind of
taking about her after all. I don't feel so surprised at you and Matthew keeping her as I did—nor so
sorry for you, either. She may turn out all right. Of course, she has a queer way of expressing
herself—a little too—well, too kind of forcible, you know; but she'll likely get over that now that she's
come to live among civilized folks. And then, her temper's pretty quick, I guess; but there's one
comfort, a child that has a quick temper, just blaze up and cool down, ain't never likely to be sly or
deceitful. Preserve me from a sly child, that's what. On the whole, Marilla, I kind of like her."
When Marilla went home Anne came out of the fragrant twilight of the orchard with a sheaf of
white narcissi in her hands.
"I apologized pretty well, didn't I?" she said proudly as they went down the lane. "I thought since I
had to do it I might as well do it thoroughly."
"You did it thoroughly, all right enough," was Marilla's comment. Marilla was dismayed at finding
herself inclined to laugh over the recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she ought to
scold Anne for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous! She compromised with her
conscience by saying severely:
"I hope you won't have occasion to make many more such apologies. I hope you'll try to control
your temper now, Anne."
"That wouldn't be so hard if people wouldn't twit me about my looks," said Anne with a sigh. "I
don't get cross about other things; but I'm SO tired of being twitted about my hair and it just makes
me boil right over. Do you suppose my hair will really be a handsome auburn when I grow up?"
"You shouldn't think so much about your looks, Anne. I'm afraid you are a very vain little girl."
"How can I be vain when I know I'm homely?" protested Anne. "I love pretty things; and I hate to
look in the glass and see something that isn't pretty. It makes me feel so sorrowful—just as I feel
when I look at any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn't beautiful."
"Handsome is as handsome does," quoted Marilla. "I've had that said to me before, but I have
my doubts about it," remarked skeptical Anne, sniffing at her narcissi. "Oh, aren't these flowers
sweet! It was lovely of Mrs. Lynde to give them to me. I have no hard feelings against Mrs. Lynde
now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling to apologize and be forgiven, doesn't it? Aren't the
stars bright tonight? If you could live in a star, which one would you pick? I'd like that lovely clear big
one away over there above that dark hill."
"Anne, do hold your tongue." said Marilla, thoroughly worn out trying to follow the gyrations of
Anne's thoughts.
Anne said no more until they turned into their own lane. A little gypsy wind came down it to meet
them, laden with the spicy perfume of young dew-wet ferns. Far up in the shadows a cheerful light
gleamed out through the trees from the kitchen at Green Gables. Anne suddenly came close to
Marilla and slipped her hand into the older woman's hard palm.
"It's lovely to be going home and know it's home," she said. "I love Green Gables already, and I
never loved any place before. No place ever seemed like home. Oh, Marilla, I'm so happy. I could
pray right now and not find it a bit hard."
Something warm and pleasant welled up in Marilla's heart at touch of that thin little hand in her
own—a throb of the maternity she had missed, perhaps. Its very unaccustomedness and
sweetness disturbed her. She hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm by
inculcating a moral.
"If you'll be a good girl you'll always be happy, Anne. And you should never find it hard to say your
prayers."
"Saying one's prayers isn't exactly the same thing as praying," said Anne meditatively. "But I'm
going to imagine that I'm the wind that is blowing up there in those tree tops. When I get tired of the
trees I'll imagine I'm gently waving down here in the ferns—and then I'll fly over to Mrs. Lynde's
garden and set the flowers dancing—and then I'll go with one great swoop over the clover field
—and then I'll blow over the Lake of Shining Waters and ripple it all up into little sparkling waves.
Oh, there's so much scope for imagination in a wind! So I'll not talk any more just now, Marilla."
"Thanks be to goodness for that," breathed Marilla in devout relief.
CHAPTER XI. Anne's Impressions of Sunday-School
"Well, how do you like them?" said Marilla.
Anne was standing in the gable room, looking solemnly at three new dresses spread out on the
bed. One was of snuffy colored gingham which Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the
preceding summer because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white checkered
sateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and one was a stiff print of an
ugly blue shade which she had purchased that week at a Carmody store.
She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike—plain skirts fulled tightly to plain
waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirt and tight as sleeves could be.
"I'll imagine that I like them," said Anne soberly.
"I don't want you to imagine it," said Marilla, offended. "Oh, I can see you don't like the dresses!
What is the matter with them? Aren't they neat and clean and new?"
"Yes."
"Then why don't you like them?"
"They're—they're not—pretty," said Anne reluctantly.
"Pretty!" Marilla sniffed. "I didn't trouble my head about getting pretty dresses for you. I don't
believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I'll tell you that right off. Those dresses are good, sensible,
serviceable dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they're all you'll get this
summer. The brown gingham and the blue print will do you for school when you begin to go. The
sateen is for church and Sunday school. I'll expect you to keep them neat and clean and not to tear
them. I should think you'd be grateful to get most anything after those skimpy wincey things you've
been wearing."
"Oh, I AM grateful," protested Anne. "But I'd be ever so much gratefuller if—if you'd made just
one of them with puffed sleeves. Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a
thrill, Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves."
"Well, you'll have to do without your thrill. I hadn't any material to waste on puffed sleeves. I think
they are ridiculous-looking things anyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones."
"But I'd rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible all by myself,"
persisted Anne mournfully.
"Trust you for that! Well, hang those dresses carefully up in your closet, and then sit down and
learn the Sunday school lesson. I got a quarterly from Mr. Bell for you and you'll go to Sunday
school tomorrow," said Marilla, disappearing downstairs in high dudgeon.
Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses.
"I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves," she whispered disconsolately. "I
prayed for one, but I didn't much expect it on that account. I didn't suppose God would have time to
bother about a little orphan girl's dress. I knew I'd just have to depend on Marilla for it. Well,
fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of snow-white muslin with lovely lace frills and three-
puffed sleeves."
The next morning warnings of a sick headache prevented Marilla from going to Sunday-school
with Anne.
"You'll have to go down and call for Mrs. Lynde, Anne." she said. "She'll see that you get into the
right class. Now, mind you behave yourself properly. Stay to preaching afterwards and ask Mrs.
Lynde to show you our pew. Here's a cent for collection. Don't stare at people and don't fidget. I
shall expect you to tell me the text when you come home."
Anne started off irreproachable, arrayed in the stiff black-and-white sateen, which, while decent
as regards length and certainly not open to the charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize
every corner and angle of her thin figure. Her hat was a little, flat, glossy, new sailor, the extreme
plainness of which had likewise much disappointed Anne, who had permitted herself secret
visions of ribbon and flowers. The latter, however, were supplied before Anne reached the main
road, for being confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred buttercups
and a glory of wild roses, Anne promptly and liberally garlanded her hat with a heavy wreath of
them. Whatever other people might have thought of the result it satisfied Anne, and she tripped
gaily down the road, holding her ruddy head with its decoration of pink and yellow very proudly.
When she had reached Mrs. Lynde's house she found that lady gone. Nothing daunted, Anne
proceeded onward to the church alone. In the porch she found a crowd of little girls, all more or less
gaily attired in whites and blues and pinks, and all staring with curious eyes at this stranger in their
midst, with her extraordinary head adornment. Avonlea little girls had already heard queer stories
about Anne. Mrs. Lynde said she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables,
said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers like a crazy girl. They looked at her
and whispered to each other behind their quarterlies. Nobody made any friendly advances, then or
later on when the opening exercises were over and Anne found herself in Miss Rogerson's class.
Miss Rogerson was a middle-aged lady who had taught a Sunday-school class for twenty years.
Her method of teaching was to ask the printed questions from the quarterly and look sternly over
its edge at the particular little girl she thought ought to answer the question. She looked very often
at Anne, and Anne, thanks to Marilla's drilling, answered promptly; but it may be questioned if she
understood very much about either question or answer.
She did not think she liked Miss Rogerson, and she felt very miserable; every other little girl in
the class had puffed sleeves. Anne felt that life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves.
"Well, how did you like Sunday school?" Marilla wanted to know when Anne came home. Her
wreath having faded, Anne had discarded it in the lane, so Marilla was spared the knowledge of
that for a time.
"I didn't like it a bit. It was horrid."
"Anne Shirley!" said Marilla rebukingly.
Anne sat down on the rocker with a long sigh, kissed one of Bonny's leaves, and waved her
hand to a blossoming fuchsia.
"They might have been lonesome while I was away," she explained. "And now about the Sunday
school. I behaved well, just as you told me. Mrs. Lynde was gone, but I went right on myself. I went
into the church, with a lot of other little girls, and I sat in the corner of a pew by the window while the
opening exercises went on. Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer. I would have been dreadfully tired
before he got through if I hadn't been sitting by that window. But it looked right out on the Lake of
Shining Waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts of splendid things."
"You shouldn't have done anything of the sort. You should have listened to Mr. Bell."
"But he wasn't talking to me," protested Anne. "He was talking to God and he didn't seem to be
very much inter-ested in it, either. I think he thought God was too far off though. There was a long
row of white birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down through them, 'way, 'way
down, deep into the water. Oh, Marilla, it was like a beautiful dream! It gave me a thrill and I just
said, 'Thank you for it, God,' two or three times."
"Not out loud, I hope," said Marilla anxiously.
"Oh, no, just under my breath. Well, Mr. Bell did get through at last and they told me to go into the
classroom with Miss Rogerson's class. There were nine other girls in it. They all had puffed
sleeves. I tried to imagine mine were puffed, too, but I couldn't. Why couldn't I? It was as easy as
could be to imagine they were puffed when I was alone in the east gable, but it was awfully hard
there among the others who had really truly puffs."
"You shouldn't have been thinking about your sleeves in Sunday school. You should have been
attending to the lesson. I hope you knew it."
"Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions. Miss Rogerson asked ever so many. I don't think it
was fair for her to do all the asking. There were lots I wanted to ask her, but I didn't like to because I
didn't think she was a kindred spirit. Then all the other little girls recited a paraphrase. She asked
me if I knew any. I told her I didn't, but I could recite, 'The Dog at His Master's Grave' if she liked.
That's in the Third Royal Reader. It isn't a really truly religious piece of poetry, but it's so sad and
melancholy that it might as well be. She said it wouldn't do and she told me to learn the nineteenth
paraphrase for next Sunday. I read it over in church afterwards and it's splendid. There are two
lines in particular that just thrill me.

"'Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell


In Midian's evil day.'

"I don't know what 'squadrons' means nor 'Midian,' either, but it sounds SO tragical. I can hardly
wait until next Sunday to recite it. I'll practice it all the week. After Sunday school I asked Miss
Rogerson—because Mrs. Lynde was too far away—to show me your pew. I sat just as still as I
could and the text was Revelations, third chapter, second and third verses. It was a very long text. If
I was a minister I'd pick the short, snappy ones. The sermon was awfully long, too. I suppose the
minister had to match it to the text. I didn't think he was a bit interesting. The trouble with him
seems to be that he hasn't enough imagination. I didn't listen to him very much. I just let my thoughts
run and I thought of the most surprising things."
Marilla felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but she was hampered by the
undeniable fact that some of the things Anne had said, especially about the minister's sermons
and Mr. Bell's prayers, were what she herself had really thought deep down in her heart for years,
but had never given expression to. It almost seemed to her that those secret, unuttered, critical
thoughts had suddenly taken visible and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken
morsel of neglected humanity.
CHAPTER XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise
It was not until the next Friday that Marilla heard the story of the flower-wreathed hat. She came
home from Mrs. Lynde's and called Anne to account.
"Anne, Mrs. Rachel says you went to church last Sunday with your hat rigged out ridiculous with
roses and buttercups. What on earth put you up to such a caper? A pretty-looking object you must
have been!"
"Oh. I know pink and yellow aren't becoming to me," began Anne.
"Becoming fiddlesticks! It was putting flowers on your hat at all, no matter what color they were,
that was ridiculous. You are the most aggravating child!"
"I don't see why it's any more ridiculous to wear flowers on your hat than on your dress,"
protested Anne. "Lots of little girls there had bouquets pinned on their dresses. What's the
difference?"
Marilla was not to be drawn from the safe concrete into dubious paths of the abstract.
"Don't answer me back like that, Anne. It was very silly of you to do such a thing. Never let me
catch you at such a trick again. Mrs. Rachel says she thought she would sink through the floor
when she saw you come in all rigged out like that. She couldn't get near enough to tell you to take
them off till it was too late. She says people talked about it something dreadful. Of course they
would think I had no better sense than to let you go decked out like that."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne, tears welling into her eyes. "I never thought you'd mind. The roses
and buttercups were so sweet and pretty I thought they'd look lovely on my hat. Lots of the little girls
had artificial flowers on their hats. I'm afraid I'm going to be a dreadful trial to you. Maybe you'd
better send me back to the asylum. That would be terrible; I don't think I could endure it; most likely
I would go into consumption; I'm so thin as it is, you see. But that would be better than being a trial
to you."
"Nonsense," said Marilla, vexed at herself for having made the child cry. "I don't want to send you
back to the asylum, I'm sure. All I want is that you should behave like other little girls and not make
yourself ridiculous. Don't cry any more. I've got some news for you. Diana Barry came home this
afternoon. I'm going up to see if I can borrow a skirt pattern from Mrs. Barry, and if you like you can
come with me and get acquainted with Diana."
Anne rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears still glistening on her cheeks; the dish towel
she had been hemming slipped unheeded to the floor.
"Oh, Marilla, I'm frightened—now that it has come I'm actually frightened. What if she shouldn't
like me! It would be the most tragical disappointment of my life."
"Now, don't get into a fluster. And I do wish you wouldn't use such long words. It sounds so funny
in a little girl. I guess Diana'll like you well enough. It's her mother you've got to reckon with. If she
doesn't like you it won't matter how much Diana does. If she has heard about your outburst to Mrs.
Lynde and going to church with buttercups round your hat I don't know what she'll think of you. You
must be polite and well behaved, and don't make any of your startling speeches. For pity's sake, if
the child isn't actually trembling!"
Anne WAS trembling. Her face was pale and tense.
"Oh, Marilla, you'd be excited, too, if you were going to meet a little girl you hoped to be your
bosom friend and whose mother mightn't like you," she said as she hastened to get her hat.
They went over to Orchard Slope by the short cut across the brook and up the firry hill grove.
Mrs. Barry came to the kitchen door in answer to Marilla's knock. She was a tall black-eyed, black-
haired woman, with a very resolute mouth. She had the reputation of being very strict with her
children.
"How do you do, Marilla?" she said cordially. "Come in. And this is the little girl you have
adopted, I suppose?"
"Yes, this is Anne Shirley," said Marilla.
"Spelled with an E," gasped Anne, who, tremulous and excited as she was, was determined
there should be no misunderstanding on that important point.
Mrs. Barry, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands and said kindly:
"How are you?"
"I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit, thank you ma'am," said Anne
gravely. Then aside to Marilla in an audible whisper, "There wasn't anything startling in that, was
there, Marilla?"
Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she dropped when the callers entered. She
was a very pretty little girl, with her mother's black eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, and the merry
expression which was her inheritance from her father.
"This is my little girl Diana," said Mrs. Barry. "Diana, you might take Anne out into the garden and
show her your flowers. It will be better for you than straining your eyes over that book. She reads
entirely too much—" this to Marilla as the little girls went out—"and I can't prevent her, for her father
aids and abets her. She's always poring over a book. I'm glad she has the prospect of a playmate
—perhaps it will take her more out-of-doors."
Outside in the garden, which was full of mellow sunset light streaming through the dark old firs to
the west of it, stood Anne and Diana, gazing bashfully at each other over a clump of gorgeous tiger
lilies.
The Barry garden was a bowery wilderness of flowers which would have delighted Anne's heart
at any time less fraught with destiny. It was encircled by huge old willows and tall firs, beneath which
flourished flowers that loved the shade. Prim, right-angled paths neatly bordered with clamshells,
intersected it like moist red ribbons and in the beds between old-fashioned flowers ran riot. There
were rosy bleeding-hearts and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant narcissi and thorny,
sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tinted Bouncing Bets; clumps of
southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purple Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet
clover white with its delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shot its fiery lances
over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where sunshine lingered and bees hummed, and
winds, beguiled into loitering, purred and rustled.
"Oh, Diana," said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking almost in a whisper, "oh, do
you think you can like me a little—enough to be my bosom friend?"
Diana laughed. Diana always laughed before she spoke.
"Why, I guess so," she said frankly. "I'm awfully glad you've come to live at Green Gables. It will
be jolly to have somebody to play with. There isn't any other girl who lives near enough to play with,
and I've no sisters big enough."
"Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?" demanded Anne eagerly.
Diana looked shocked.
"Why it's dreadfully wicked to swear," she said rebukingly.
"Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know."
"I never heard of but one kind," said Diana doubtfully.
"There really is another. Oh, it isn't wicked at all. It just means vowing and promising solemnly."
"Well, I don't mind doing that," agreed Diana, relieved. "How do you do it?"
"We must join hands—so," said Anne gravely. "It ought to be over running water. We'll just
imagine this path is running water. I'll repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my
bosom friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my
name in."
Diana repeated the "oath" with a laugh fore and aft. Then she said:
"You're a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But I believe I'm going to like you
real well."
When Marilla and Anne went home Diana went with them as for as the log bridge. The two little
girls walked with their arms about each other. At the brook they parted with many promises to
spend the next afternoon together.
"Well, did you find Diana a kindred spirit?" asked Marilla as they went up through the garden of
Green Gables.
"Oh yes," sighed Anne, blissfully unconscious of any sarcasm on Marilla's part. "Oh Marilla, I'm
the happiest girl on Prince Edward Island this very moment. I assure you I'll say my prayers with a
right good-will tonight. Diana and I are going to build a playhouse in Mr. William Bell's birch grove
tomorrow. Can I have those broken pieces of china that are out in the woodshed? Diana's birthday
is in February and mine is in March. Don't you think that is a very strange coincidence? Diana is
going to lend me a book to read. She says it's perfectly splendid and tremendously exciting. She's
going to show me a place back in the woods where rice lilies grow. Don't you think Diana has got
very soulful eyes? I wish I had soulful eyes. Diana is going to teach me to sing a song called 'Nelly
in the Hazel Dell.' She's going to give me a picture to put up in my room; it's a perfectly beautiful
picture, she says—a lovely lady in a pale blue silk dress. A sewing-machine agent gave it to her. I
wish I had something to give Diana. I'm an inch taller than Diana, but she is ever so much fatter;
she says she'd like to be thin because it's so much more graceful, but I'm afraid she only said it to
soothe my feelings. We're going to the shore some day to gather shells. We have agreed to call
the spring down by the log bridge the Dryad's Bubble. Isn't that a perfectly elegant name? I read a
story once about a spring called that. A dryad is sort of a grown-up fairy, I think."
"Well, all I hope is you won't talk Diana to death," said Marilla. "But remember this in all your
planning, Anne. You're not going to play all the time nor most of it. You'll have your work to do and
it'll have to be done first."
Anne's cup of happiness was full, and Matthew caused it to overflow. He had just got home from
a trip to the store at Carmody, and he sheepishly produced a small parcel from his pocket and
handed it to Anne, with a deprecatory look at Marilla.
"I heard you say you liked chocolate sweeties, so I got you some," he said.
"Humph," sniffed Marilla. "It'll ruin her teeth and stomach. There, there, child, don't look so
dismal. You can eat those, since Matthew has gone and got them. He'd better have brought you
peppermints. They're wholesomer. Don't sicken yourself eating all them at once now."
"Oh, no, indeed, I won't," said Anne eagerly. "I'll just eat one tonight, Marilla. And I can give Diana
half of them, can't I? The other half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give some to her. It's delightful
to think I have something to give her."
"I will say it for the child," said Marilla when Anne had gone to her gable, "she isn't stingy. I'm
glad, for of all faults I detest stinginess in a child. Dear me, it's only three weeks since she came,
and it seems as if she'd been here always. I can't imagine the place without her. Now, don't be
looking I told-you-so, Matthew. That's bad enough in a woman, but it isn't to be endured in a man.
I'm perfectly willing to own up that I'm glad I consented to keep the child and that I'm getting fond of
her, but don't you rub it in, Matthew Cuthbert."
CHAPTER XIII. The Delights of Anticipation
"It's time Anne was in to do her sewing," said Marilla, glancing at the clock and then out into the
yellow August afternoon where everything drowsed in the heat. "She stayed playing with Diana
more than half an hour more'n I gave her leave to; and now she's perched out there on the
woodpile talking to Matthew, nineteen to the dozen, when she knows perfectly well she ought to be
at her work. And of course he's listening to her like a perfect ninny. I never saw such an infatuated
man. The more she talks and the odder the things she says, the more he's delighted evidently.
Anne Shirley, you come right in here this minute, do you hear me!"
A series of staccato taps on the west window brought Anne flying in from the yard, eyes shining,
cheeks faintly flushed with pink, unbraided hair streaming behind her in a torrent of brightness.
"Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed breathlessly, "there's going to be a Sunday-school picnic next week
—in Mr. Harmon Andrews's field, right near the lake of Shining Waters. And Mrs. Superintendent
Bell and Mrs. Rachel Lynde are going to make ice cream—think of it, Marilla—ICE CREAM! And,
oh, Marilla, can I go to it?"
"Just look at the clock, if you please, Anne. What time did I tell you to come in?"
"Two o'clock—but isn't it splendid about the picnic, Marilla? Please can I go? Oh, I've never
been to a picnic—I've dreamed of picnics, but I've never—"
"Yes, I told you to come at two o'clock. And it's a quarter to three. I'd like to know why you didn't
obey me, Anne."
"Why, I meant to, Marilla, as much as could be. But you have no idea how fascinating Idlewild is.
And then, of course, I had to tell Matthew about the picnic. Matthew is such a sympathetic listener.
Please can I go?"
"You'll have to learn to resist the fascination of Idle-whatever-you-call-it. When I tell you to come in
at a certain time I mean that time and not half an hour later. And you needn't stop to discourse with
sympathetic listeners on your way, either. As for the picnic, of course you can go. You're a Sunday-
school scholar, and it's not likely I'd refuse to let you go when all the other little girls are going."
"But—but," faltered Anne, "Diana says that everybody must take a basket of things to eat. I can't
cook, as you know, Marilla, and—and—I don't mind going to a picnic without puffed sleeves so
much, but I'd feel terribly humiliated if I had to go without a basket. It's been preying on my mind
ever since Diana told me."
"Well, it needn't prey any longer. I'll bake you a basket."
"Oh, you dear good Marilla. Oh, you are so kind to me. Oh, I'm so much obliged to you."
Getting through with her "ohs" Anne cast herself into Marilla's arms and rapturously kissed her
sallow cheek. It was the first time in her whole life that childish lips had voluntarily touched Marilla's
face. Again that sudden sensation of startling sweetness thrilled her. She was secretly vastly
pleased at Anne's impulsive caress, which was probably the reason why she said brusquely:
"There, there, never mind your kissing nonsense. I'd sooner see you doing strictly as you're told.
As for cooking, I mean to begin giving you lessons in that some of these days. But you're so
featherbrained, Anne, I've been waiting to see if you'd sober down a little and learn to be steady
before I begin. You've got to keep your wits about you in cooking and not stop in the middle of
things to let your thoughts rove all over creation. Now, get out your patchwork and have your square
done before teatime."
"I do NOT like patchwork," said Anne dolefully, hunting out her workbasket and sitting down
before a little heap of red and white diamonds with a sigh. "I think some kinds of sewing would be
nice; but there's no scope for imagination in patchwork. It's just one little seam after another and
you never seem to be getting anywhere. But of course I'd rather be Anne of Green Gables sewing
patchwork than Anne of any other place with nothing to do but play. I wish time went as quick
sewing patches as it does when I'm playing with Diana, though. Oh, we do have such elegant
times, Marilla. I have to furnish most of the imagination, but I'm well able to do that. Diana is simply
perfect in every other way. You know that little piece of land across the brook that runs up between
our farm and Mr. Barry's. It belongs to Mr. William Bell, and right in the corner there is a little ring of
white birch trees—the most romantic spot, Marilla. Diana and I have our playhouse there. We call it
Idlewild. Isn't that a poetical name? I assure you it took me some time to think it out. I stayed awake
nearly a whole night before I invented it. Then, just as I was dropping off to sleep, it came like an
inspiration. Diana was ENRAPTURED when she heard it. We have got our house fixed up
elegantly. You must come and see it, Marilla—won't you? We have great big stones, all covered
with moss, for seats, and boards from tree to tree for shelves. And we have all our dishes on them.
Of course, they're all broken but it's the easiest thing in the world to imagine that they are whole.
There's a piece of a plate with a spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is especially beautiful. We
keep it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass there, too. The fairy glass is as lovely as a dream.
Diana found it out in the woods behind their chicken house. It's all full of rainbows—just little young
rainbows that haven't grown big yet—and Diana's mother told her it was broken off a hanging lamp
they once had. But it's nice to imagine the fairies lost it one night when they had a ball, so we call it
the fairy glass. Matthew is going to make us a table. Oh, we have named that little round pool over
in Mr. Barry's field Willowmere. I got that name out of the book Diana lent me. That was a thrilling
book, Marilla. The heroine had five lovers. I'd be satisfied with one, wouldn't you? She was very
handsome and she went through great tribulations. She could faint as easy as anything. I'd love to
be able to faint, wouldn't you, Marilla? It's so romantic. But I'm really very healthy for all I'm so thin. I
believe I'm getting fatter, though. Don't you think I am? I look at my elbows every morning when I get
up to see if any dimples are coming. Diana is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves. She
is going to wear it to the picnic. Oh, I do hope it will be fine next Wednesday. I don't feel that I could
endure the disappointment if anything happened to prevent me from getting to the picnic. I
suppose I'd live through it, but I'm certain it would be a lifelong sorrow. It wouldn't matter if I got to a
hundred picnics in after years; they wouldn't make up for missing this one. They're going to have
boats on the Lake of Shining Waters—and ice cream, as I told you. I have never tasted ice cream.
Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of those things that are beyond
imagination."
"Anne, you have talked even on for ten minutes by the clock," said Marilla. "Now, just for
curiosity's sake, see if you can hold your tongue for the same length of time."
Anne held her tongue as desired. But for the rest of the week she talked picnic and thought
picnic and dreamed picnic. On Saturday it rained and she worked herself up into such a frantic
state lest it should keep on raining until and over Wednesday that Marilla made her sew an extra
patchwork square by way of steadying her nerves.
On Sunday Anne confided to Marilla on the way home from church that she grew actually cold all
over with excitement when the minister announced the picnic from the pulpit.
"Such a thrill as went up and down my back, Marilla! I don't think I'd ever really believed until then
that there was honestly going to be a picnic. I couldn't help fearing I'd only imagined it. But when a
minister says a thing in the pulpit you just have to believe it."
"You set your heart too much on things, Anne," said Marilla, with a sigh. "I'm afraid there'll be a
great many disappointments in store for you through life."
"Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them," exclaimed Anne. "You mayn't
get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to
them. Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.'
But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed."
Marilla wore her amethyst brooch to church that day as usual. Marilla always wore her amethyst
brooch to church. She would have thought it rather sacrilegious to leave it off—as bad as forgetting
her Bible or her collection dime. That amethyst brooch was Marilla's most treasured possession. A
seafaring uncle had given it to her mother who in turn had bequeathed it to Marilla. It was an old-
fashioned oval, containing a braid of her mother's hair, surrounded by a border of very fine
amethysts. Marilla knew too little about precious stones to realize how fine the amethysts actually
were; but she thought them very beautiful and was always pleasantly conscious of their violet
shimmer at her throat, above her good brown satin dress, even although she could not see it.
Anne had been smitten with delighted admiration when she first saw that brooch.
"Oh, Marilla, it's a perfectly elegant brooch. I don't know how you can pay attention to the sermon
or the prayers when you have it on. I couldn't, I know. I think amethysts are just sweet. They are what
I used to think diamonds were like. Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond, I read about them
and I tried to imagine what they would be like. I thought they would be lovely glimmering purple
stones. When I saw a real diamond in a lady's ring one day I was so disappointed I cried. Of
course, it was very lovely but it wasn't my idea of a diamond. Will you let me hold the brooch for
one minute, Marilla? Do you think amethysts can be the souls of good violets?"
CHAPTER XIV. Anne's Confession
ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her room with a troubled
face.
"Anne," she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by the spotless table and
singing, "Nelly of the Hazel Dell" with a vigor and expression that did credit to Diana's teaching,
"did you see anything of my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came
home from church yesterday evening, but I can't find it anywhere."
"I—I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society," said Anne, a little slowly. "I
was passing your door when I saw it on the cushion, so I went in to look at it."
"Did you touch it?" said Marilla sternly.
"Y-e-e-s," admitted Anne, "I took it up and I pinned it on my breast just to see how it would look."
"You had no business to do anything of the sort. It's very wrong in a little girl to meddle. You
shouldn't have gone into my room in the first place and you shouldn't have touched a brooch that
didn't belong to you in the second. Where did you put it?"
"Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn't it on a minute. Truly, I didn't mean to meddle, Marilla. I
didn't think about its being wrong to go in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I'll
never do it again. That's one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty thing twice."
"You didn't put it back," said Marilla. "That brooch isn't anywhere on the bureau. You've taken it
out or something, Anne."
"I did put it back," said Anne quickly—pertly, Marilla thought. "I don't just remember whether I
stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in the china tray. But I'm perfectly certain I put it back."
"I'll go and have another look," said Marilla, determining to be just. "If you put that brooch back
it's there still. If it isn't I'll know you didn't, that's all!"
Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over the bureau but in every other
place she thought the brooch might possibly be. It was not to be found and she returned to the
kitchen.
"Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last person to handle it. Now,
what have you done with it? Tell me the truth at once. Did you take it out and lose it?"
"No, I didn't," said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla's angry gaze squarely. "I never took the
brooch out of your room and that is the truth, if I was to be led to the block for it—although I'm not
very certain what a block is. So there, Marilla."
Anne's "so there" was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but Marilla took it as a display
of defiance.
"I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne," she said sharply. "I know you are. There now,
don't say anything more unless you are prepared to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay
there until you are ready to confess."
"Will I take the peas with me?" said Anne meekly.
"No, I'll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you."
When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very disturbed state of mind.
She was worried about her valuable brooch. What if Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child
to deny having taken it, when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face, too!
"I don't know what I wouldn't sooner have had happen," thought Marilla, as she nervously shelled
the peas. "Of course, I don't suppose she meant to steal it or anything like that. She's just taken it
to play with or help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it, that's clear, for there
hasn't been a soul in that room since she was in it, by her own story, until I went up tonight. And the
brooch is gone, there's nothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up for fear she'll
be punished. It's a dreadful thing to think she tells falsehoods. It's a far worse thing than her fit of
temper. It's a fearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can't trust. Slyness and
untruthfulness—that's what she has displayed. I declare I feel worse about that than about the
brooch. If she'd only have told the truth about it I wouldn't mind so much."
Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and searched for the brooch, without
finding it. A bedtime visit to the east gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she
knew anything about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convinced that she did.
She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded and puzzled; he could not
so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to admit that circumstances were against her.
"You're sure it hasn't fell down behind the bureau?" was the only suggestion he could offer.
"I've moved the bureau and I've taken out the drawers and I've looked in every crack and cranny"
was Marilla's positive answer. "The brooch is gone and that child has taken it and lied about it.
That's the plain, ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face."
"Well now, what are you going to do about it?" Matthew asked forlornly, feeling secretly thankful
that Marilla and not he had to deal with the situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time.
"She'll stay in her room until she confesses," said Marilla grimly, remembering the success of
this method in the former case. "Then we'll see. Perhaps we'll be able to find the brooch if she'll
only tell where she took it; but in any case she'll have to be severely punished, Matthew."
"Well now, you'll have to punish her," said Matthew, reaching for his hat. "I've nothing to do with it,
remember. You warned me off yourself."
Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lynde for advice. She went up
to the east gable with a very serious face and left it with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly
refused to confess. She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch. The child had
evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity which she sternly repressed. By night she was,
as she expressed it, "beat out."
"You'll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up your mind to that," she said
firmly.
"But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla," cried Anne. "You won't keep me from going to that, will you?
You'll just let me out for the afternoon, won't you? Then I'll stay here as long as you like
AFTERWARDS cheerfully. But I MUST go to the picnic."
"You'll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you've confessed, Anne."
"Oh, Marilla," gasped Anne.
But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to order for the picnic.
Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies in the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that
entered in on viewless winds at every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms
like spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful hands as if watching for Anne's
usual morning greeting from the east gable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took
her breakfast up to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and resolute, with tight-
shut lips and gleaming eyes.
"Marilla, I'm ready to confess."
"Ah!" Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded; but her success was
very bitter to her. "Let me hear what you have to say then, Anne."
"I took the amethyst brooch," said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she had learned. "I took it just
as you said. I didn't mean to take it when I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I
pinned it on my breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how perfectly
thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so
much easier to imagine I was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and I
make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to amethysts? So I took the
brooch. I thought I could put it back before you came home. I went all the way around by the road to
lengthen out the time. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters I took
the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine in the sunlight! And then, when I was
leaning over the bridge, it just slipped through my fingers—so—and went down—down—down, all
purply-sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining Waters. And that's the best I
can do at confessing, Marilla."
Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child had taken and lost her treasured
amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly reciting the details thereof without the least apparent
compunction or repentance.
"Anne, this is terrible," she said, trying to speak calmly. "You are the very wickedest girl I ever
heard of."
"Yes, I suppose I am," agreed Anne tranquilly. "And I know I'll have to be punished. It'll be your
duty to punish me, Marilla. Won't you please get it over right off because I'd like to go to the picnic
with nothing on my mind."
"Picnic, indeed! You'll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That shall be your punishment. And it
isn't half severe enough either for what you've done!"
"Not go to the picnic!" Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla's hand. "But you PROMISED
me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to the picnic. That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you
like but that. Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice cream! For
anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice cream again."
Marilla disengaged Anne's clinging hands stonily.
"You needn't plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that's final. No, not a word."
Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her hands together, gave a
piercing shriek, and then flung herself face downward on the bed, crying and writhing in an utter
abandonment of disappointment and despair.
"For the land's sake!" gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. "I believe the child is crazy. No
child in her senses would behave as she does. If she isn't she's utterly bad. Oh dear, I'm afraid
Rachel was right from the first. But I've put my hand to the plow and I won't look back."
That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the porch floor and the dairy
shelves when she could find nothing else to do. Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it—but
Marilla did. Then she went out and raked the yard.
When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. A tear-stained face appeared,
looking tragically over the banisters.
"Come down to your dinner, Anne."
"I don't want any dinner, Marilla," said Anne, sobbingly. "I couldn't eat anything. My heart is
broken. You'll feel remorse of conscience someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive
you. Remember when the time comes that I forgive you. But please don't ask me to eat anything,
especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are so unromantic when one is in
affliction."
Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale of woe to Matthew, who,
between his sense of justice and his unlawful sympathy with Anne, was a miserable man.
"Well now, she shouldn't have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told stories about it," he admitted,
mournfully surveying his plateful of unromantic pork and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food
unsuited to crises of feeling, "but she's such a little thing—such an interesting little thing. Don't you
think it's pretty rough not to let her go to the picnic when she's so set on it?"
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm amazed at you. I think I've let her off entirely too easy. And she doesn't
appear to realize how wicked she's been at all—that's what worries me most. If she'd really felt
sorry it wouldn't be so bad. And you don't seem to realize it, neither; you're making excuses for her
all the time to yourself—I can see that."
"Well now, she's such a little thing," feebly reiterated Matthew. "And there should be allowances
made, Marilla. You know she's never had any bringing up."
"Well, she's having it now" retorted Marilla.
The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was a very dismal meal. The
only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote, the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as
a personal insult.
When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fed Marilla remembered
that she had noticed a small rent in her best black lace shawl when she had taken it off on Monday
afternoon on returning from the Ladies' Aid.
She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk. As Marilla lifted it out, the
sunlight, falling through the vines that clustered thickly about the window, struck upon something
caught in the shawl—something that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light. Marilla snatched
at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hanging to a thread of the lace by its catch!
"Dear life and heart," said Marilla blankly, "what does this mean? Here's my brooch safe and
sound that I thought was at the bottom of Barry's pond. Whatever did that girl mean by saying she
took it and lost it? I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched. I remember now that when I took
off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the bureau for a minute. I suppose the brooch got caught
in it somehow. Well!"
Marilla betook herself to the east gable, brooch in hand. Anne had cried herself out and was
sitting dejectedly by the window.
"Anne Shirley," said Marilla solemnly, "I've just found my brooch hanging to my black lace shawl.
Now I want to know what that rigmarole you told me this morning meant."
"Why, you said you'd keep me here until I confessed," returned Anne wearily, "and so I decided
to confess because I was bound to get to the picnic. I thought out a confession last night after I went
to bed and made it as interesting as I could. And I said it over and over so that I wouldn't forget it.
But you wouldn't let me go to the picnic after all, so all my trouble was wasted."
Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience pricked her.
"Anne, you do beat all! But I was wrong—I see that now. I shouldn't have doubted your word when
I'd never known you to tell a story. Of course, it wasn't right for you to confess to a thing you hadn't
done—it was very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it. So if you'll forgive me, Anne, I'll forgive you
and we'll start square again. And now get yourself ready for the picnic."
Anne flew up like a rocket.
"Oh, Marilla, isn't it too late?"
"No, it's only two o'clock. They won't be more than well gathered yet and it'll be an hour before
they have tea. Wash your face and comb your hair and put on your gingham. I'll fill a basket for you.
There's plenty of stuff baked in the house. And I'll get Jerry to hitch up the sorrel and drive you down
to the picnic ground."
"Oh, Marilla," exclaimed Anne, flying to the washstand. "Five minutes ago I was so miserable I
was wishing I'd never been born and now I wouldn't change places with an angel!"
That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned to Green Gables in a state of
beatification impossible to describe.
"Oh, Marilla, I've had a perfectly scrumptious time. Scrumptious is a new word I learned today. I
heard Mary Alice Bell use it. Isn't it very expressive? Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea
and then Mr. Harmon Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters—six of us at a
time. And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard. She was leaning out to pick water lilies and if Mr.
Andrews hadn't caught her by her sash just in the nick of time she'd fallen in and prob'ly been
drowned. I wish it had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience to have been
nearly drowned. It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. And we had the ice cream. Words fail me to
describe that ice cream. Marilla, I assure you it was sublime."
That evening Marilla told the whole story to Matthew over her stocking basket.
"I'm willing to own up that I made a mistake," she concluded candidly, "but I've learned a lesson. I
have to laugh when I think of Anne's 'confession,' although I suppose I shouldn't for it really was a
falsehood. But it doesn't seem as bad as the other would have been, somehow, and anyhow I'm
responsible for it. That child is hard to understand in some respects. But I believe she'll turn out all
right yet. And there's one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that she's in."
CHAPTER XV. A Tempest in the School Teapot
"What a splendid day!" said Anne, drawing a long breath. "Isn't it good just to be alive on a day
like this? I pity the people who aren't born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course,
but they can never have this one. And it's splendider still to have such a lovely way to go to school
by, isn't it?"
"It's a lot nicer than going round by the road; that is so dusty and hot," said Diana practically,
peeping into her dinner basket and mentally calculating if the three juicy, toothsome, raspberry tarts
reposing there were divided among ten girls how many bites each girl would have.
The little girls of Avonlea school always pooled their lunches, and to eat three raspberry tarts all
alone or even to share them only with one's best chum would have forever and ever branded as
"awful mean" the girl who did it. And yet, when the tarts were divided among ten girls you just got
enough to tantalize you.
The way Anne and Diana went to school WAS a pretty one. Anne thought those walks to and
from school with Diana couldn't be improved upon even by imagination. Going around by the main
road would have been so unromantic; but to go by Lover's Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale
and the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was.
Lover's Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched far up into the
woods to the end of the Cuthbert farm. It was the way by which the cows were taken to the back
pasture and the wood hauled home in winter. Anne had named it Lover's Lane before she had
been a month at Green Gables.
"Not that lovers ever really walk there," she explained to Marilla, "but Diana and I are reading a
perfectly magnificent book and there's a Lover's Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it's a
very pretty name, don't you think? So romantic! We can't imagine the lovers into it, you know. I like
that lane because you can think out loud there without people calling you crazy."
Anne, starting out alone in the morning, went down Lover's Lane as far as the brook. Here Diana
met her, and the two little girls went on up the lane under the leafy arch of maples—"maples are
such sociable trees," said Anne; "they're always rustling and whispering to you"—until they came to
a rustic bridge. Then they left the lane and walked through Mr. Barry's back field and past
Willowmere. Beyond Willowmere came Violet Vale—a little green dimple in the shadow of Mr.
Andrew Bell's big woods. "Of course there are no violets there now," Anne told Marilla, "but Diana
says there are millions of them in spring. Oh, Marilla, can't you just imagine you see them? It
actually takes away my breath. I named it Violet Vale. Diana says she never saw the beat of me for
hitting on fancy names for places. It's nice to be clever at something, isn't it? But Diana named the
Birch Path. She wanted to, so I let her; but I'm sure I could have found something more poetical
than plain Birch Path. Anybody can think of a name like that. But the Birch Path is one of the
prettiest places in the world, Marilla."
It was. Other people besides Anne thought so when they stumbled on it. It was a little narrow,
twisting path, winding down over a long hill straight through Mr. Bell's woods, where the light came
down sifted through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond. It
was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, white stemmed and lissom boughed; ferns and
starflowers and wild lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of pigeonberries grew thickly along it; and
always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh
of wood winds in the trees overhead. Now and then you might see a rabbit skipping across the
road if you were quiet—which, with Anne and Diana, happened about once in a blue moon. Down
in the valley the path came out to the main road and then it was just up the spruce hill to the school.
The Avonlea school was a whitewashed building, low in the eaves and wide in the windows,
furnished inside with comfortable substantial old-fashioned desks that opened and shut, and were
carved all over their lids with the initials and hieroglyphics of three generations of school children.
The schoolhouse was set back from the road and behind it was a dusky fir wood and a brook
where all the children put their bottles of milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner
hour.
Marilla had seen Anne start off to school on the first day of September with many secret
misgivings. Anne was such an odd girl. How would she get on with the other children? And how on
earth would she ever manage to hold her tongue during school hours?
Things went better than Marilla feared, however. Anne came home that evening in high spirits.
"I think I'm going to like school here," she announced. "I don't think much of the master, through.
He's all the time curling his mustache and making eyes at Prissy Andrews. Prissy is grown up, you
know. She's sixteen and she's studying for the entrance examination into Queen's Academy at
Charlottetown next year. Tillie Boulter says the master is DEAD GONE on her. She's got a beautiful
complexion and curly brown hair and she does it up so elegantly. She sits in the long seat at the
back and he sits there, too, most of the time—to explain her lessons, he says. But Ruby Gillis says
she saw him writing something on her slate and when Prissy read it she blushed as red as a beet
and giggled; and Ruby Gillis says she doesn't believe it had anything to do with the lesson."
"Anne Shirley, don't let me hear you talking about your teacher in that way again," said Marilla
sharply. "You don't go to school to criticize the master. I guess he can teach YOU something, and
it's your business to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not to come home
telling tales about him. That is something I won't encourage. I hope you were a good girl."
"Indeed I was," said Anne comfortably. "It wasn't so hard as you might imagine, either. I sit with
Diana. Our seat is right by the window and we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There
are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime. It's so nice to
have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I like Diana best and always will. I ADORE Diana.
I'm dreadfully far behind the others. They're all in the fifth book and I'm only in the fourth. I feel that
it's kind of a disgrace. But there's not one of them has such an imagination as I have and I soon
found that out. We had reading and geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr.
Phillips said my spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that everybody could see it, all
marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have been politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis
gave me an apple and Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with 'May I see you home?' on it.
I'm to give it back to her tomorrow. And Tillie Boulter let me wear her bead ring all the afternoon.
Can I have some of those pearl beads off the old pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring?
And oh, Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she heard Prissy
Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose. Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever
had in my life and you can't imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really a pretty
nose? I know you'll tell me the truth."
"Your nose is well enough," said Marilla shortly. Secretly she thought Anne's nose was a
remarkable pretty one; but she had no intention of telling her so.
That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far. And now, this crisp September
morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down the Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls
in Avonlea.
"I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today," said Diana. "He's been visiting his cousins over
in New Brunswick all summer and he only came home Saturday night. He's AW'FLY handsome,
Anne. And he teases the girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out."
Diana's voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented out than not.
"Gilbert Blythe?" said Anne. "Isn't his name that's written up on the porch wall with Julia Bell's and
a big 'Take Notice' over them?"
"Yes," said Diana, tossing her head, "but I'm sure he doesn't like Julia Bell so very much. I've
heard him say he studied the multiplication table by her freckles."
"Oh, don't speak about freckles to me," implored Anne. "It isn't delicate when I've got so many.
But I do think that writing take-notices up on the wall about the boys and girls is the silliest ever. I
should just like to see anybody dare to write my name up with a boy's. Not, of course," she
hastened to add, "that anybody would."
Anne sighed. She didn't want her name written up. But it was a little humiliating to know that
there was no danger of it.
"Nonsense," said Diana, whose black eyes and glossy tresses had played such havoc with the
hearts of Avonlea schoolboys that her name figured on the porch walls in half a dozen take-notices.
"It's only meant as a joke. And don't you be too sure your name won't ever be written up. Charlie
Sloane is DEAD GONE on you. He told his mother—his MOTHER, mind you—that you were the
smartest girl in school. That's better than being good looking."
"No, it isn't," said Anne, feminine to the core. "I'd rather be pretty than clever. And I hate Charlie
Sloane, I can't bear a boy with goggle eyes. If anyone wrote my name up with his I'd never GET
over it, Diana Barry. But it IS nice to keep head of your class."
"You'll have Gilbert in your class after this," said Diana, "and he's used to being head of his
class, I can tell you. He's only in the fourth book although he's nearly fourteen. Four years ago his
father was sick and had to go out to Alberta for his health and Gilbert went with him. They were
there three years and Gil didn't go to school hardly any until they came back. You won't find it so
easy to keep head after this, Anne."
"I'm glad," said Anne quickly. "I couldn't really feel proud of keeping head of little boys and girls
of just nine or ten. I got up yesterday spelling 'ebullition.' Josie Pye was head and, mind you, she
peeped in her book. Mr. Phillips didn't see her—he was looking at Prissy Andrews—but I did. I just
swept her a look of freezing scorn and she got as red as a beet and spelled it wrong after all."
"Those Pye girls are cheats all round," said Diana indignantly, as they climbed the fence of the
main road. "Gertie Pye actually went and put her milk bottle in my place in the brook yesterday. Did
you ever? I don't speak to her now."
When Mr. Phillips was in the back of the room hearing Prissy Andrews's Latin, Diana whispered
to Anne,
"That's Gilbert Blythe sitting right across the aisle from you, Anne. Just look at him and see if you
don't think he's handsome."
Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said Gilbert Blythe was
absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the
back of her seat. He was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth twisted
into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take a sum to the master; she fell back into
her seat with a little shriek, believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at
her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert had whisked the pin out of
sight and was studying his history with the soberest face in the world; but when the commotion
subsided he looked at Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery.
"I think your Gilbert Blythe IS handsome," confided Anne to Diana, "but I think he's very bold. It
isn't good manners to wink at a strange girl."
But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.
Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to Prissy Andrews and the
rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as they pleased eating green apples, whispering,
drawing pictures on their slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle.
Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing utterly, because Anne was at
that moment totally oblivious not only to the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other
scholar in Avonlea school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes fixed on the blue
glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west window afforded, she was far away in a
gorgeous dreamland hearing and seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions.
Gilbert Blythe wasn't used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with
failure. She SHOULD look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big
eyes that weren't like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.
Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne's long red braid, held it out at arm's
length and said in a piercing whisper:
"Carrots! Carrots!"
Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!
She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She
flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in
equally angry tears.
"You mean, hateful boy!" she exclaimed passionately. "How dare you!"
And then—thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it—slate not
head—clear across.
Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable one. Everybody said
"Oh" in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry.
Tommy Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared open-mouthed at the
tableau.
Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne's shoulder.
"Anne Shirley, what does this mean?" he said angrily. Anne returned no answer. It was asking
too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell before the whole school that she had been called
"carrots." Gilbert it was who spoke up stoutly.
"It was my fault Mr. Phillips. I teased her."
Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert.
"I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such a vindictive spirit," he said
in a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil passions from
the hearts of small imperfect mortals. "Anne, go and stand on the platform in front of the
blackboard for the rest of the afternoon."
Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment under which her sensitive
spirit quivered as from a whiplash. With a white, set face she obeyed. Mr. Phillips took a chalk
crayon and wrote on the blackboard above her head.
"Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control her temper," and then read
it out loud so that even the primer class, who couldn't read writing, should understand it.
Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above her. She did not cry or hang
her head. Anger was still too hot in her heart for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of
humiliation. With resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted alike Diana's sympathetic
gaze and Charlie Sloane's indignant nods and Josie Pye's malicious smiles. As for Gilbert Blythe,
she would not even look at him. She would NEVER look at him again! She would never speak to
him!!
When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held high. Gilbert Blythe tried
to intercept her at the porch door.
"I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne," he whispered contritely. "Honest I am. Don't be
mad for keeps, now."
Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing. "Oh how could you, Anne?" breathed
Diana as they went down the road half reproachfully, half admiringly. Diana felt that SHE could
never have resisted Gilbert's plea.
"I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe," said Anne firmly. "And Mr. Phillips spelled my name without
an e, too. The iron has entered into my soul, Diana."
Diana hadn't the least idea what Anne meant but she understood it was something terrible.
"You mustn't mind Gilbert making fun of your hair," she said soothingly. "Why, he makes fun of all
the girls. He laughs at mine because it's so black. He's called me a crow a dozen times; and I
never heard him apologize for anything before, either."
"There's a great deal of difference between being called a crow and being called carrots," said
Anne with dignity. "Gilbert Blythe has hurt my feelings EXCRUCIATINGLY, Diana."
It is possible the matter might have blown over without more excruciation if nothing else had
happened. But when things begin to happen they are apt to keep on.
Avonlea scholars often spent noon hour picking gum in Mr. Bell's spruce grove over the hill and
across his big pasture field. From there they could keep an eye on Eben Wright's house, where the
master boarded. When they saw Mr. Phillips emerging therefrom they ran for the schoolhouse; but
the distance being about three times longer than Mr. Wright's lane they were very apt to arrive
there, breathless and gasping, some three minutes too late.
On the following day Mr. Phillips was seized with one of his spasmodic fits of reform and
announced before going home to dinner, that he should expect to find all the scholars in their seats
when he returned. Anyone who came in late would be punished.
All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell's spruce grove as usual, fully intending to stay
only long enough to "pick a chew." But spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum
beguiling; they picked and loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that recalled them to a
sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover shouting from the top of a patriarchal old spruce
"Master's coming."
The girls who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach the schoolhouse in time
but without a second to spare. The boys, who had to wriggle hastily down from the trees, were
later; and Anne, who had not been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of
the grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to herself, with a wreath of rice lilies on
her hair as if she were some wild divinity of the shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run
like a deer, however; run she did with the impish result that she overtook the boys at the door and
was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr. Phillips was in the act of hanging up his
hat.
Mr. Phillips's brief reforming energy was over; he didn't want the bother of punishing a dozen
pupils; but it was necessary to do something to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat
and found it in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a forgotten lily wreath
hanging askew over one ear and giving her a particularly rakish and disheveled appearance.
"Anne Shirley, since you seem to be so fond of the boys' company we shall indulge your taste for
it this afternoon," he said sarcastically. "Take those flowers out of your hair and sit with Gilbert
Blythe."
The other boys snickered. Diana, turning pale with pity, plucked the wreath from Anne's hair and
squeezed her hand. Anne stared at the master as if turned to stone.
"Did you hear what I said, Anne?" queried Mr. Phillips sternly.
"Yes, sir," said Anne slowly "but I didn't suppose you really meant it."
"I assure you I did"—still with the sarcastic inflection which all the children, and Anne especially,
hated. It flicked on the raw. "Obey me at once."
For a moment Anne looked as if she meant to disobey. Then, realizing that there was no help for
it, she rose haughtily, stepped across the aisle, sat down beside Gilbert Blythe, and buried her
face in her arms on the desk. Ruby Gillis, who got a glimpse of it as it went down, told the others
going home from school that she'd "acksually never seen anything like it—it was so white, with
awful little red spots in it."
To Anne, this was as the end of all things. It was bad enough to be singled out for punishment
from among a dozen equally guilty ones; it was worse still to be sent to sit with a boy, but that that
boy should be Gilbert Blythe was heaping insult on injury to a degree utterly unbearable. Anne felt
that she could not bear it and it would be of no use to try. Her whole being seethed with shame and
anger and humiliation.
At first the other scholars looked and whispered and giggled and nudged. But as Anne never
lifted her head and as Gilbert worked fractions as if his whole soul was absorbed in them and them
only, they soon returned to their own tasks and Anne was forgotten. When Mr. Phillips called the
history class out Anne should have gone, but Anne did not move, and Mr. Phillips, who had been
writing some verses "To Priscilla" before he called the class, was thinking about an obstinate
rhyme still and never missed her. Once, when nobody was looking, Gilbert took from his desk a
little pink candy heart with a gold motto on it, "You are sweet," and slipped it under the curve of
Anne's arm. Whereupon Anne arose, took the pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers,
dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position without
deigning to bestow a glance on Gilbert.
When school went out Anne marched to her desk, ostentatiously took out everything therein,
books and writing tablet, pen and ink, testament and arithmetic, and piled them neatly on her
cracked slate.
"What are you taking all those things home for, Anne?" Diana wanted to know, as soon as they
were out on the road. She had not dared to ask the question before.
"I am not coming back to school any more," said Anne. Diana gasped and stared at Anne to see
if she meant it.
"Will Marilla let you stay home?" she asked.
"She'll have to," said Anne. "I'll NEVER go to school to that man again."
"Oh, Anne!" Diana looked as if she were ready to cry. "I do think you're mean. What shall I do?
Mr. Phillips will make me sit with that horrid Gertie Pye—I know he will because she is sitting alone.
Do come back, Anne."
"I'd do almost anything in the world for you, Diana," said Anne sadly. "I'd let myself be torn limb
from limb if it would do you any good. But I can't do this, so please don't ask it. You harrow up my
very soul."
"Just think of all the fun you will miss," mourned Diana. "We are going to build the loveliest new
house down by the brook; and we'll be playing ball next week and you've never played ball, Anne.
It's tremendously exciting. And we're going to learn a new song—Jane Andrews is practicing it up
now; and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and we're all going to read
it out loud, chapter about, down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud,
Anne."
Nothing moved Anne in the least. Her mind was made up. She would not go to school to Mr.
Phillips again; she told Marilla so when she got home.
"Nonsense," said Marilla.
"It isn't nonsense at all," said Anne, gazing at Marilla with solemn, reproachful eyes. "Don't you
understand, Marilla? I've been insulted."
"Insulted fiddlesticks! You'll go to school tomorrow as usual."
"Oh, no." Anne shook her head gently. "I'm not going back, Marilla. I'll learn my lessons at home
and I'll be as good as I can be and hold my tongue all the time if it's possible at all. But I will not go
back to school, I assure you."
Marilla saw something remarkably like unyielding stubbornness looking out of Anne's small face.
She understood that she would have trouble in overcoming it; but she re-solved wisely to say
nothing more just then. "I'll run down and see Rachel about it this evening," she thought. "There's no
use reasoning with Anne now. She's too worked up and I've an idea she can be awful stubborn if
she takes the notion. Far as I can make out from her story, Mr. Phillips has been carrying matters
with a rather high hand. But it would never do to say so to her. I'll just talk it over with Rachel. She's
sent ten children to school and she ought to know something about it. She'll have heard the whole
story, too, by this time."
Marilla found Mrs. Lynde knitting quilts as industriously and cheerfully as usual.
"I suppose you know what I've come about," she said, a little shamefacedly.
Mrs. Rachel nodded.
"About Anne's fuss in school, I reckon," she said. "Tillie Boulter was in on her way home from
school and told me about it." "I don't know what to do with her," said Marilla. "She declares she
won't go back to school. I never saw a child so worked up. I've been expecting trouble ever since
she started to school. I knew things were going too smooth to last. She's so high strung. What
would you advise, Rachel?"
"Well, since you've asked my advice, Marilla," said Mrs. Lynde amiably—Mrs. Lynde dearly
loved to be asked for advice—"I'd just humor her a little at first, that's what I'd do. It's my belief that
Mr. Phillips was in the wrong. Of course, it doesn't do to say so to the children, you know. And of
course he did right to punish her yesterday for giving way to temper. But today it was different. The
others who were late should have been punished as well as Anne, that's what. And I don't believe in
making the girls sit with the boys for punishment. It isn't modest. Tillie Boulter was real indignant.
She took Anne's part right through and said all the scholars did too. Anne seems real popular
among them, somehow. I never thought she'd take with them so well."
"Then you really think I'd better let her stay home," said Marilla in amazement.
"Yes. That is I wouldn't say school to her again until she said it herself. Depend upon it, Marilla,
she'll cool off in a week or so and be ready enough to go back of her own accord, that's what,
while, if you were to make her go back right off, dear knows what freak or tantrum she'd take next
and make more trouble than ever. The less fuss made the better, in my opinion. She won't miss
much by not going to school, as far as THAT goes. Mr. Phillips isn't any good at all as a teacher.
The order he keeps is scandalous, that's what, and he neglects the young fry and puts all his time
on those big scholars he's getting ready for Queen's. He'd never have got the school for another
year if his uncle hadn't been a trustee—THE trustee, for he just leads the other two around by the
nose, that's what. I declare, I don't know what education in this Island is coming to."
Mrs. Rachel shook her head, as much as to say if she were only at the head of the educational
system of the Province things would be much better managed.
Marilla took Mrs. Rachel's advice and not another word was said to Anne about going back to
school. She learned her lessons at home, did her chores, and played with Diana in the chilly purple
autumn twilights; but when she met Gilbert Blythe on the road or encountered him in Sunday school
she passed him by with an icy contempt that was no whit thawed by his evident desire to appease
her. Even Diana's efforts as a peacemaker were of no avail. Anne had evidently made up her mind
to hate Gilbert Blythe to the end of life.
As much as she hated Gilbert, however, did she love Diana, with all the love of her passionate
little heart, equally intense in its likes and dislikes. One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard
with a basket of apples, found Anne sitting along by the east window in the twilight, crying bitterly.
"Whatever's the matter now, Anne?" she asked.
"It's about Diana," sobbed Anne luxuriously. "I love Diana so, Marilla. I cannot ever live without
her. But I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me.
And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband—I just hate him furiously. I've been imagining it all out
—the wedding and everything—Diana dressed in snowy garments, with a veil, and looking as
beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and puffed
sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana goodbye-
e-e—" Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing bitterness.
Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no use; she collapsed on the
nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and unusual peal of laughter that Matthew, crossing the
yard outside, halted in amazement. When had he heard Marilla laugh like that before?
"Well, Anne Shirley," said Marilla as soon as she could speak, "if you must borrow trouble, for
pity's sake borrow it handier home. I should think you had an imagination, sure enough."
CHAPTER XVI. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results
OCTOBER was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the hollow turned as
golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard were royal crimson and the wild cherry
trees along the lane put on the loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields
sunned themselves in aftermaths.
Anne reveled in the world of color about her.
"Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of
gorgeous boughs, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we
just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it? Look at these maple branches. Don't they
give you a thrill—several thrills? I'm going to decorate my room with them."
"Messy things," said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably developed. "You clutter
up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in."
"Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much better in a room where
there are pretty things. I'm going to put these boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table."
"Mind you don't drop leaves all over the stairs then. I'm going on a meeting of the Aid Society at
Carmody this afternoon, Anne, and I won't likely be home before dark. You'll have to get Matthew
and Jerry their supper, so mind you don't forget to put the tea to draw until you sit down at the table
as you did last time."
"It was dreadful of me to forget," said Anne apologetically, "but that was the afternoon I was
trying to think of a name for Violet Vale and it crowded other things out. Matthew was so good. He
never scolded a bit. He put the tea down himself and said we could wait awhile as well as not. And
I told him a lovely fairy story while we were waiting, so he didn't find the time long at all. It was a
beautiful fairy story, Marilla. I forgot the end of it, so I made up an end for it myself and Matthew
said he couldn't tell where the join came in."
"Matthew would think it all right, Anne, if you took a notion to get up and have dinner in the
middle of the night. But you keep your wits about you this time. And—I don't really know if I'm doing
right—it may make you more addlepated than ever—but you can ask Diana to come over and
spend the afternoon with you and have tea here."
"Oh, Marilla!" Anne clasped her hands. "How perfectly lovely! You ARE able to imagine things
after all or else you'd never have understood how I've longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice
and grown-uppish. No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I have company. Oh,
Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea set?"
"No, indeed! The rosebud tea set! Well, what next? You know I never use that except for the
minister or the Aids. You'll put down the old brown tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock
of cherry preserves. It's time it was being used anyhow—I believe it's beginning to work. And you
can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and snaps."
"I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and pouring out the tea," said
Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. "And asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn't but
of course I'll ask her just as if I didn't know. And then pressing her to take another piece of fruit
cake and another helping of preserves. Oh, Marilla, it's a wonderful sensation just to think of it. Can
I take her into the spare room to lay off her hat when she comes? And then into the parlor to sit?"
"No. The sitting room will do for you and your company. But there's a bottle half full of raspberry
cordial that was left over from the church social the other night. It's on the second shelf of the
sitting-room closet and you and Diana can have it if you like, and a cooky to eat with it along in the
afternoon, for I daresay Matthew'll be late coming in to tea since he's hauling potatoes to the
vessel."
Anne flew down to the hollow, past the Dryad's Bubble and up the spruce path to Orchard Slope,
to ask Diana to tea. As a result just after Marilla had driven off to Carmody, Diana came over,
dressed in HER second-best dress and looking exactly as it is proper to look when asked out to
tea. At other times she was wont to run into the kitchen without knocking; but now she knocked
primly at the front door. And when Anne, dressed in her second best, as primly opened it, both little
girls shook hands as gravely as if they had never met before. This unnatural solemnity lasted until
after Diana had been taken to the east gable to lay off her hat and then had sat for ten minutes in
the sitting room, toes in position.
"How is your mother?" inquired Anne politely, just as if she had not seen Mrs. Barry picking
apples that morning in excellent health and spirits.
"She is very well, thank you. I suppose Mr. Cuthbert is hauling potatoes to the LILY SANDS this
afternoon, is he?" said Diana, who had ridden down to Mr. Harmon Andrews's that morning in
Matthew's cart.
"Yes. Our potato crop is very good this year. I hope your father's crop is good too."
"It is fairly good, thank you. Have you picked many of your apples yet?"
"Oh, ever so many," said Anne forgetting to be dignified and jumping up quickly. "Let's go out to
the orchard and get some of the Red Sweetings, Diana. Marilla says we can have all that are left
on the tree. Marilla is a very generous woman. She said we could have fruit cake and cherry
preserves for tea. But it isn't good manners to tell your company what you are going to give them to
eat, so I won't tell you what she said we could have to drink. Only it begins with an R and a C and
it's bright red color. I love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good as any other color."
The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground with fruit, proved so
delightful that the little girls spent most of the afternoon in it, sitting in a grassy corner where the
frost had spared the green and the mellow autumn sunshine lingered warmly, eating apples and
talking as hard as they could. Diana had much to tell Anne of what went on in school. She had to sit
with Gertie Pye and she hated it; Gertie squeaked her pencil all the time and it just made her
—Diana's—blood run cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all her warts away, true's you live, with a
magic pebble that old Mary Joe from the Creek gave her. You had to rub the warts with the pebble
and then throw it away over your left shoulder at the time of the new moon and the warts would all
go. Charlie Sloane's name was written up with Em White's on the porch wall and Em White was
AWFUL MAD about it; Sam Boulter had "sassed" Mr. Phillips in class and Mr. Phillips whipped
him and Sam's father came down to the school and dared Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on one of his
children again; and Mattie Andrews had a new red hood and a blue crossover with tassels on it
and the airs she put on about it were perfectly sickening; and Lizzie Wright didn't speak to Mamie
Wilson because Mamie Wilson's grown-up sister had cut out Lizzie Wright's grown-up sister with
her beau; and everybody missed Anne so and wished she's come to school again; and Gilbert
Blythe—
But Anne didn't want to hear about Gilbert Blythe. She jumped up hurriedly and said suppose
they go in and have some raspberry cordial.
Anne looked on the second shelf of the room pantry but there was no bottle of raspberry cordial
there. Search revealed it away back on the top shelf. Anne put it on a tray and set it on the table
with a tumbler.
"Now, please help yourself, Diana," she said politely. "I don't believe I'll have any just now. I don't
feel as if I wanted any after all those apples."
Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright-red hue admiringly, and then sipped it
daintily.
"That's awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne," she said. "I didn't know raspberry cordial was so
nice."
"I'm real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I'm going to run out and stir the fire up. There
are so many responsibilities on a person's mind when they're keeping house, isn't there?"
When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second glassful of cordial; and,
being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered no particular objection to the drinking of a third. The
tumblerfuls were generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice.
"The nicest I ever drank," said Diana. "It's ever so much nicer than Mrs. Lynde's, although she
brags of hers so much. It doesn't taste a bit like hers."
"I should think Marilla's raspberry cordial would prob'ly be much nicer than Mrs. Lynde's," said
Anne loyally. "Marilla is a famous cook. She is trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it
is uphill work. There's so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go by rules. The
last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in. I was thinking the loveliest story about you and
me, Diana. I thought you were desperately ill with smallpox and everybody deserted you, but I went
boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took the smallpox and died and I was
buried under those poplar trees in the graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and
watered it with your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who sacrificed her
life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana. The tears just rained down over my cheeks while
I mixed the cake. But I forgot the flour and the cake was a dismal failure. Flour is so essential to
cakes, you know. Marilla was very cross and I don't wonder. I'm a great trial to her. She was terribly
mortified about the pudding sauce last week. We had a plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and
there was half the pudding and a pitcherful of sauce left over. Marilla said there was enough for
another dinner and told me to set it on the pantry shelf and cover it. I meant to cover it just as much
as could be, Diana, but when I carried it in I was imagining I was a nun—of course I'm a Protestant
but I imagined I was a Catholic—taking the veil to bury a broken heart in cloistered seclusion; and I
forgot all about covering the pudding sauce. I thought of it next morning and ran to the pantry.
Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in that pudding sauce! I
lifted the mouse out with a spoon and threw it out in the yard and then I washed the spoon in three
waters. Marilla was out milking and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I'd give the
sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I was imagining that I was a frost fairy going through
the woods turning the trees red and yellow, whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about
the pudding sauce again and Marilla sent me out to pick apples. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Ross
from Spencervale came here that morning. You know they are very stylish people, especially Mrs.
Chester Ross. When Marilla called me in dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table. I
tried to be as polite and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Mrs. Chester Ross to think I was a
ladylike little girl even if I wasn't pretty. Everything went right until I saw Marilla coming with the plum
pudding in one hand and the pitcher of pudding sauce WARMED UP, in the other. Diana, that was
a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in my place and shrieked out
'Marilla, you mustn't use that pudding sauce. There was a mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you
before.' Oh, Diana, I shall never forget that awful moment if I live to be a hundred. Mrs. Chester
Ross just LOOKED at me and I thought I would sink through the floor with mortification. She is such
a perfect housekeeper and fancy what she must have thought of us. Marilla turned red as fire but
she never said a word—then. She just carried that sauce and pudding out and brought in some
strawberry preserves. She even offered me some, but I couldn't swallow a mouthful. It was like
heaping coals of fire on my head. After Mrs. Chester Ross went away, Marilla gave me a dreadful
scolding. Why, Diana, what is the matter?"
Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting her hands to her head.
"I'm—I'm awful sick," she said, a little thickly. "I—I—must go right home."
"Oh, you mustn't dream of going home without your tea," cried Anne in distress. "I'll get it right off
—I'll go and put the tea down this very minute."
"I must go home," repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly.
"Let me get you a lunch anyhow," implored Anne. "Let me give you a bit of fruit cake and some
of the cherry preserves. Lie down on the sofa for a little while and you'll be better. Where do you
feel bad?"
"I must go home," said Diana, and that was all she would say. In vain Anne pleaded.
"I never heard of company going home without tea," she mourned. "Oh, Diana, do you suppose
that it's possible you're really taking the smallpox? If you are I'll go and nurse you, you can depend
on that. I'll never forsake you. But I do wish you'd stay till after tea. Where do you feel bad?"
"I'm awful dizzy," said Diana.
And indeed, she walked very dizzily. Anne, with tears of disappointment in her eyes, got Diana's
hat and went with her as far as the Barry yard fence. Then she wept all the way back to Green
Gables, where she sorrowfully put the remainder of the raspberry cordial back into the pantry and
got tea ready for Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone out of the performance.
The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents from dawn till dusk Anne did
not stir abroad from Green Gables. Monday afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde's on an
errand. In a very short space of time Anne came flying back up the lane with tears rolling down her
cheeks. Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself face downward on the sofa in an agony.
"Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?" queried Marilla in doubt and dismay. "I do hope you
haven't gone and been saucy to Mrs. Lynde again."
No answer from Anne save more tears and stormier sobs!
"Anne Shirley, when I ask you a question I want to be answered. Sit right up this very minute and
tell me what you are crying about."
Anne sat up, tragedy personified.
"Mrs. Lynde was up to see Mrs. Barry today and Mrs. Barry was in an awful state," she wailed.
"She says that I set Diana DRUNK Saturday and sent her home in a disgraceful condition. And she
says I must be a thoroughly bad, wicked little girl and she's never, never going to let Diana play with
me again. Oh, Marilla, I'm just overcome with woe."
Marilla stared in blank amazement.
"Set Diana drunk!" she said when she found her voice. "Anne are you or Mrs. Barry crazy? What
on earth did you give her?"
"Not a thing but raspberry cordial," sobbed Anne. "I never thought raspberry cordial would set
people drunk, Marilla—not even if they drank three big tumblerfuls as Diana did. Oh, it sounds so
—so—like Mrs. Thomas's husband! But I didn't mean to set her drunk."
"Drunk fiddlesticks!" said Marilla, marching to the sitting room pantry. There on the shelf was a
bottle which she at once recognized as one containing some of her three-year-old homemade
currant wine for which she was celebrated in Avonlea, although certain of the stricter sort, Mrs.
Barry among them, disapproved strongly of it. And at the same time Marilla recollected that she
had put the bottle of raspberry cordial down in the cellar instead of in the pantry as she had told
Anne.
She went back to the kitchen with the wine bottle in her hand. Her face was twitching in spite of
herself.
"Anne, you certainly have a genius for getting into trouble. You went and gave Diana currant wine
instead of raspberry cordial. Didn't you know the difference yourself?"
"I never tasted it," said Anne. "I thought it was the cordial. I meant to be so—so—hospitable.
Diana got awfully sick and had to go home. Mrs. Barry told Mrs. Lynde she was simply dead drunk.
She just laughed silly-like when her mother asked her what was the matter and went to sleep and
slept for hours. Her mother smelled her breath and knew she was drunk. She had a fearful
headache all day yesterday. Mrs. Barry is so indignant. She will never believe but what I did it on
purpose."
"I should think she would better punish Diana for being so greedy as to drink three glassfuls of
anything," said Marilla shortly. "Why, three of those big glasses would have made her sick even if it
had only been cordial. Well, this story will be a nice handle for those folks who are so down on me
for making currant wine, although I haven't made any for three years ever since I found out that the
minister didn't approve. I just kept that bottle for sickness. There, there, child, don't cry. I can't see
as you were to blame although I'm sorry it happened so."
"I must cry," said Anne. "My heart is broken. The stars in their courses fight against me, Marilla.
Diana and I are parted forever. Oh, Marilla, I little dreamed of this when first we swore our vows of
friendship."
"Don't be foolish, Anne. Mrs. Barry will think better of it when she finds you're not to blame. I
suppose she thinks you've done it for a silly joke or something of that sort. You'd best go up this
evening and tell her how it was."
"My courage fails me at the thought of facing Diana's injured mother," sighed Anne. "I wish you'd
go, Marilla. You're so much more dignified than I am. Likely she'd listen to you quicker than to me."
"Well, I will," said Marilla, reflecting that it would probably be the wiser course. "Don't cry any
more, Anne. It will be all right."
Marilla had changed her mind about it being all right by the time she got back from Orchard
Slope. Anne was watching for her coming and flew to the porch door to meet her.
"Oh, Marilla, I know by your face that it's been no use," she said sorrowfully. "Mrs. Barry won't
forgive me?"
"Mrs. Barry indeed!" snapped Marilla. "Of all the unreasonable women I ever saw she's the
worst. I told her it was all a mistake and you weren't to blame, but she just simply didn't believe me.
And she rubbed it well in about my currant wine and how I'd always said it couldn't have the least
effect on anybody. I just told her plainly that currant wine wasn't meant to be drunk three tumblerfuls
at a time and that if a child I had to do with was so greedy I'd sober her up with a right good
spanking."
Marilla whisked into the kitchen, grievously disturbed, leaving a very much distracted little soul in
the porch behind her. Presently Anne stepped out bareheaded into the chill autumn dusk; very
determinedly and steadily she took her way down through the sere clover field over the log bridge
and up through the spruce grove, lighted by a pale little moon hanging low over the western woods.
Mrs. Barry, coming to the door in answer to a timid knock, found a white-lipped eager-eyed
suppliant on the doorstep.
Her face hardened. Mrs. Barry was a woman of strong prejudices and dislikes, and her anger
was of the cold, sullen sort which is always hardest to overcome. To do her justice, she really
believed Anne had made Diana drunk out of sheer malice prepense, and she was honestly
anxious to preserve her little daughter from the contamination of further intimacy with such a child.
"What do you want?" she said stiffly.
Anne clasped her hands.
"Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me. I did not mean to—to—intoxicate Diana. How could I? Just
imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl that kind people had adopted and you had just one
bosom friend in all the world. Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose? I thought it was
only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry cordial. Oh, please don't say that you
won't let Diana play with me any more. If you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe."
This speech which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde's heart in a twinkling, had no effect on
Mrs. Barry except to irritate her still more. She was suspicious of Anne's big words and dramatic
gestures and imagined that the child was making fun of her. So she said, coldly and cruelly:
"I don't think you are a fit little girl for Diana to associate with. You'd better go home and behave
yourself."
Anne's lips quivered.
"Won't you let me see Diana just once to say farewell?" she implored.
"Diana has gone over to Carmody with her father," said Mrs. Barry, going in and shutting the
door.
Anne went back to Green Gables calm with despair.
"My last hope is gone," she told Marilla. "I went up and saw Mrs. Barry myself and she treated
me very insultingly. Marilla, I do NOT think she is a well-bred woman. There is nothing more to do
except to pray and I haven't much hope that that'll do much good because, Marilla, I do not believe
that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person as Mrs. Barry."
"Anne, you shouldn't say such things" rebuked Marilla, striving to overcome that unholy tendency
to laughter which she was dismayed to find growing upon her. And indeed, when she told the whole
story to Matthew that night, she did laugh heartily over Anne's tribulations.
But when she slipped into the east gable before going to bed and found that Anne had cried
herself to sleep an unaccustomed softness crept into her face.
"Poor little soul," she murmured, lifting a loose curl of hair from the child's tear-stained face.
Then she bent down and kissed the flushed cheek on the pillow.
CHAPTER XVII. A New Interest in Life
THE next afternoon Anne, bending over her patchwork at the kitchen window, happened to
glance out and beheld Diana down by the Dryad's Bubble beckoning mysteriously. In a trice Anne
was out of the house and flying down to the hollow, astonishment and hope struggling in her
expressive eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Diana's dejected countenance.
"Your mother hasn't relented?" she gasped.
Diana shook her head mournfully.
"No; and oh, Anne, she says I'm never to play with you again. I've cried and cried and I told her it
wasn't your fault, but it wasn't any use. I had ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and
say good-bye to you. She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she's timing me by the clock."
"Ten minutes isn't very long to say an eternal farewell in," said Anne tearfully. "Oh, Diana, will you
promise faithfully never to forget me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may
caress thee?"
"Indeed I will," sobbed Diana, "and I'll never have another bosom friend—I don't want to have. I
couldn't love anybody as I love you."
"Oh, Diana," cried Anne, clasping her hands, "do you LOVE me?"
"Why, of course I do. Didn't you know that?"
"No." Anne drew a long breath. "I thought you LIKED me of course but I never hoped you LOVED
me. Why, Diana, I didn't think anybody could love me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can
remember. Oh, this is wonderful! It's a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness of a path
severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again."
"I love you devotedly, Anne," said Diana stanchly, "and I always will, you may be sure of that."
"And I will always love thee, Diana," said Anne, solemnly extending her hand. "In the years to
come thy memory will shine like a star over my lonely life, as that last story we read together says.
Diana, wilt thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasure forevermore?"
"Have you got anything to cut it with?" queried Diana, wiping away the tears which Anne's
affecting accents had caused to flow afresh, and returning to practicalities.
"Yes. I've got my patchwork scissors in my apron pocket fortunately," said Anne. She solemnly
clipped one of Diana's curls. "Fare thee well, my beloved friend. Henceforth we must be as
strangers though living side by side. But my heart will ever be faithful to thee."
Anne stood and watched Diana out of sight, mournfully waving her hand to the latter whenever
she turned to look back. Then she returned to the house, not a little consoled for the time being by
this romantic parting.
"It is all over," she informed Marilla. "I shall never have another friend. I'm really worse off than
ever before, for I haven't Katie Maurice and Violetta now. And even if I had it wouldn't be the same.
Somehow, little dream girls are not satisfying after a real friend. Diana and I had such an affecting
farewell down by the spring. It will be sacred in my memory forever. I used the most pathetic
language I could think of and said 'thou' and 'thee.' 'Thou' and 'thee' seem so much more romantic
than 'you.' Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I'm going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it
around my neck all my life. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don't believe I'll live very long.
Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before her Mrs. Barry may feel remorse for what
she has done and will let Diana come to my funeral."
"I don't think there is much fear of your dying of grief as long as you can talk, Anne," said Marilla
unsympathetically.
The following Monday Anne surprised Marilla by coming down from her room with her basket of
books on her arm and hip and her lips primmed up into a line of determination.
"I'm going back to school," she announced. "That is all there is left in life for me, now that my
friend has been ruthlessly torn from me. In school I can look at her and muse over days departed."
"You'd better muse over your lessons and sums," said Marilla, concealing her delight at this
development of the situation. "If you're going back to school I hope we'll hear no more of breaking
slates over people's heads and such carryings on. Behave yourself and do just what your teacher
tells you."
"I'll try to be a model pupil," agreed Anne dolefully. "There won't be much fun in it, I expect. Mr.
Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a model pupil and there isn't a spark of imagination or life in her.
She is just dull and poky and never seems to have a good time. But I feel so depressed that
perhaps it will come easy to me now. I'm going round by the road. I couldn't bear to go by the Birch
Path all alone. I should weep bitter tears if I did."
Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms. Her imagination had been sorely missed in
games, her voice in the singing and her dramatic ability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner
hour. Ruby Gillis smuggled three blue plums over to her during testament reading; Ella May
MacPherson gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of a floral catalogue—a
species of desk decoration much prized in Avonlea school. Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a
perfectly elegant new pattern of knit lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Boulter gave her a
perfume bottle to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copied carefully on a piece of pale pink paper
scalloped on the edges the following effusion:

When twilight drops her curtain down


And pins it with a star
Remember that you have a friend
Though she may wander far.

"It's so nice to be appreciated," sighed Anne rapturously to Marilla that night.


The girls were not the only scholars who "appreciated" her. When Anne went to her seat after
dinner hour—she had been told by Mr. Phillips to sit with the model Minnie Andrews—she found on
her desk a big luscious "strawberry apple." Anne caught it up all ready to take a bite when she
remembered that the only place in Avonlea where strawberry apples grew was in the old Blythe
orchard on the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters. Anne dropped the apple as if it were a
red-hot coal and ostentatiously wiped her fingers on her handkerchief. The apple lay untouched on
her desk until the next morning, when little Timothy Andrews, who swept the school and kindled the
fire, annexed it as one of his perquisites. Charlie Sloane's slate pencil, gorgeously bedizened with
striped red and yellow paper, costing two cents where ordinary pencils cost only one, which he sent
up to her after dinner hour, met with a more favorable reception. Anne was graciously pleased to
accept it and rewarded the donor with a smile which exalted that infatuated youth straightway into
the seventh heaven of delight and caused him to make such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr.
Phillips kept him in after school to rewrite it.
But as,

The Caesar's pageant shorn of Brutus' bust


Did but of Rome's best son remind her more.

so the marked absence of any tribute or recognition from Diana Barry who was sitting with
Gertie Pye embittered Anne's little triumph.
"Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think," she mourned to Marilla that night. But the next
morning a note most fearfully and wonderfully twisted and folded, and a small parcel were passed
across to Anne.
Dear Anne (ran the former)
Mother says I'm not to play with you or talk to you even in school. It isn't my fault and don't be
cross at me, because I love you as much as ever. I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to and I
don't like Gertie Pye one bit. I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper. They
are awfully fashionable now and only three girls in school know how to make them. When you look
at it remember
Your true friend
Diana Barry.
Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt reply back to the other side
of the school.
My own darling Diana:—
Of course I am not cross at you because you have to obey your mother. Our spirits can
commune. I shall keep your lovely present forever. Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl
—although she has no imagination—but after having been Diana's busum friend I cannot be
Minnie's. Please excuse mistakes because my spelling isn't very good yet, although much
improoved.
Yours until death us do part
Anne or Cordelia Shirley.
P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight. A. OR C.S.
Marilla pessimistically expected more trouble since Anne had again begun to go to school. But
none developed. Perhaps Anne caught something of the "model" spirit from Minnie Andrews; at
least she got on very well with Mr. Phillips thenceforth. She flung herself into her studies heart and
soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert Blythe. The rivalry between them was
soon apparent; it was entirely good natured on Gilbert's side; but it is much to be feared that the
same thing cannot be said of Anne, who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for holding
grudges. She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves. She would not stoop to admit that she
meant to rival Gilbert in schoolwork, because that would have been to acknowledge his existence
which Anne persistently ignored; but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuated between them.
Now Gilbert was head of the spelling class; now Anne, with a toss of her long red braids, spelled
him down. One morning Gilbert had all his sums done correctly and had his name written on the
blackboard on the roll of honor; the next morning Anne, having wrestled wildly with decimals the
entire evening before, would be first. One awful day they were ties and their names were written up
together. It was almost as bad as a take-notice and Anne's mortification was as evident as
Gilbert's satisfaction. When the written examinations at the end of each month were held the
suspense was terrible. The first month Gilbert came out three marks ahead. The second Anne beat
him by five. But her triumph was marred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her heartily before the
whole school. It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had felt the sting of his defeat.
Mr. Phillips might not be a very good teacher; but a pupil so inflexibly determined on learning as
Anne was could hardly escape making progress under any kind of teacher. By the end of the term
Anne and Gilbert were both promoted into the fifth class and allowed to begin studying the
elements of "the branches"—by which Latin, geometry, French, and algebra were meant. In
geometry Anne met her Waterloo.
"It's perfectly awful stuff, Marilla," she groaned. "I'm sure I'll never be able to make head or tail of
it. There is no scope for imagination in it at all. Mr. Phillips says I'm the worst dunce he ever saw at
it. And Gil—I mean some of the others are so smart at it. It is extremely mortifying, Marilla.
"Even Diana gets along better than I do. But I don't mind being beaten by Diana. Even although
we meet as strangers now I still love her with an INEXTINGUISHABLE love. It makes me very sad
at times to think about her. But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such an interesting
world, can one?"
CHAPTER XVIII. Anne to the Rescue
ALL things great are wound up with all things little. At first glance it might not seem that the
decision of a certain Canadian Premier to include Prince Edward Island in a political tour could
have much or anything to do with the fortunes of little Anne Shirley at Green Gables. But it had.
It was a January the Premier came, to address his loyal supporters and such of his
nonsupporters as chose to be present at the monster mass meeting held in Charlottetown. Most of
the Avonlea people were on Premier's side of politics; hence on the night of the meeting nearly all
the men and a goodly proportion of the women had gone to town thirty miles away. Mrs. Rachel
Lynde had gone too. Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a red-hot politician and couldn't have believed that the
political rally could be carried through without her, although she was on the opposite side of
politics. So she went to town and took her husband—Thomas would be useful in looking after the
horse—and Marilla Cuthbert with her. Marilla had a sneaking interest in politics herself, and as she
thought it might be her only chance to see a real live Premier, she promptly took it, leaving Anne
and Matthew to keep house until her return the following day.
Hence, while Marilla and Mrs. Rachel were enjoying themselves hugely at the mass meeting,
Anne and Matthew had the cheerful kitchen at Green Gables all to themselves. A bright fire was
glowing in the old-fashioned Waterloo stove and blue-white frost crystals were shining on the
windowpanes. Matthew nodded over a FARMERS' ADVOCATE on the sofa and Anne at the table
studied her lessons with grim determination, despite sundry wistful glances at the clock shelf,
where lay a new book that Jane Andrews had lent her that day. Jane had assured her that it was
warranted to produce any number of thrills, or words to that effect, and Anne's fingers tingled to
reach out for it. But that would mean Gilbert Blythe's triumph on the morrow. Anne turned her back
on the clock shelf and tried to imagine it wasn't there.
"Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?"
"Well now, no, I didn't," said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a start.
"I wish you had," sighed Anne, "because then you'd be able to sympathize with me. You can't
sympathize properly if you've never studied it. It is casting a cloud over my whole life. I'm such a
dunce at it, Matthew."
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew soothingly. "I guess you're all right at anything. Mr. Phillips told
me last week in Blair's store at Carmody that you was the smartest scholar in school and was
making rapid progress. 'Rapid progress' was his very words. There's them as runs down Teddy
Phillips and says he ain't much of a teacher, but I guess he's all right."
Matthew would have thought anyone who praised Anne was "all right."
"I'm sure I'd get on better with geometry if only he wouldn't change the letters," complained Anne.
"I learn the proposition off by heart and then he draws it on the blackboard and puts different letters
from what are in the book and I get all mixed up. I don't think a teacher should take such a mean
advantage, do you? We're studying agriculture now and I've found out at last what makes the roads
red. It's a great comfort. I wonder how Marilla and Mrs. Lynde are enjoying themselves. Mrs. Lynde
says Canada is going to the dogs the way things are being run at Ottawa and that it's an awful
warning to the electors. She says if women were allowed to vote we would soon see a blessed
change. What way do you vote, Matthew?"
"Conservative," said Matthew promptly. To vote Conservative was part of Matthew's religion.
"Then I'm Conservative too," said Anne decidedly. "I'm glad because Gil—because some of the
boys in school are Grits. I guess Mr. Phillips is a Grit too because Prissy Andrews's father is one,
and Ruby Gillis says that when a man is courting he always has to agree with the girl's mother in
religion and her father in politics. Is that true, Matthew?"
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew.
"Did you ever go courting, Matthew?"
"Well now, no, I dunno's I ever did," said Matthew, who had certainly never thought of such a thing
in his whole existence.
Anne reflected with her chin in her hands.
"It must be rather interesting, don't you think, Matthew? Ruby Gillis says when she grows up
she's going to have ever so many beaus on the string and have them all crazy about her; but I think
that would be too exciting. I'd rather have just one in his right mind. But Ruby Gillis knows a great
deal about such matters because she has so many big sisters, and Mrs. Lynde says the Gillis girls
have gone off like hot cakes. Mr. Phillips goes up to see Prissy Andrews nearly every evening. He
says it is to help her with her lessons but Miranda Sloane is studying for Queen's too, and I should
think she needed help a lot more than Prissy because she's ever so much stupider, but he never
goes to help her in the evenings at all. There are a great many things in this world that I can't
understand very well, Matthew."
"Well now, I dunno as I comprehend them all myself," acknowledged Matthew.
"Well, I suppose I must finish up my lessons. I won't allow myself to open that new book Jane lent
me until I'm through. But it's a terrible temptation, Matthew. Even when I turn my back on it I can see
it there just as plain. Jane said she cried herself sick over it. I love a book that makes me cry. But I
think I'll carry that book into the sitting room and lock it in the jam closet and give you the key. And
you must NOT give it to me, Matthew, until my lessons are done, not even if I implore you on my
bended knees. It's all very well to say resist temptation, but it's ever so much easier to resist it if
you can't get the key. And then shall I run down the cellar and get some russets, Matthew? Wouldn't
you like some russets?"
"Well now, I dunno but what I would," said Matthew, who never ate russets but knew Anne's
weakness for them.
Just as Anne emerged triumphantly from the cellar with her plateful of russets came the sound of
flying footsteps on the icy board walk outside and the next moment the kitchen door was flung open
and in rushed Diana Barry, white faced and breathless, with a shawl wrapped hastily around her
head. Anne promptly let go of her candle and plate in her surprise, and plate, candle, and apples
crashed together down the cellar ladder and were found at the bottom embedded in melted
grease, the next day, by Marilla, who gathered them up and thanked mercy the house hadn't been
set on fire.
"Whatever is the matter, Diana?" cried Anne. "Has your mother relented at last?"
"Oh, Anne, do come quick," implored Diana nervously. "Minnie May is awful sick—she's got
croup. Young Mary Joe says—and Father and Mother are away to town and there's nobody to go
for the doctor. Minnie May is awful bad and Young Mary Joe doesn't know what to do—and oh,
Anne, I'm so scared!"
Matthew, without a word, reached out for cap and coat, slipped past Diana and away into the
darkness of the yard.
"He's gone to harness the sorrel mare to go to Carmody for the doctor," said Anne, who was
hurrying on hood and jacket. "I know it as well as if he'd said so. Matthew and I are such kindred
spirits I can read his thoughts without words at all."
"I don't believe he'll find the doctor at Carmody," sobbed Diana. "I know that Dr. Blair went to
town and I guess Dr. Spencer would go too. Young Mary Joe never saw anybody with croup and
Mrs. Lynde is away. Oh, Anne!"
"Don't cry, Di," said Anne cheerily. "I know exactly what to do for croup. You forget that Mrs.
Hammond had twins three times. When you look after three pairs of twins you naturally get a lot of
experience. They all had croup regularly. Just wait till I get the ipecac bottle—you mayn't have any
at your house. Come on now."
The two little girls hastened out hand in hand and hurried through Lover's Lane and across the
crusted field beyond, for the snow was too deep to go by the shorter wood way. Anne, although
sincerely sorry for Minnie May, was far from being insensible to the romance of the situation and to
the sweetness of once more sharing that romance with a kindred spirit.
The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy slope; big stars were
shining over the silent fields; here and there the dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering
their branches and the wind whistling through them. Anne thought it was truly delightful to go
skimming through all this mystery and loveliness with your bosom friend who had been so long
estranged.
Minnie May, aged three, was really very sick. She lay on the kitchen sofa feverish and restless,
while her hoarse breathing could be heard all over the house. Young Mary Joe, a buxom, broad-
faced French girl from the creek, whom Mrs. Barry had engaged to stay with the children during her
absence, was helpless and bewildered, quite incapable of thinking what to do, or doing it if she
thought of it.
Anne went to work with skill and promptness.
"Minnie May has croup all right; she's pretty bad, but I've seen them worse. First we must have
lots of hot water. I declare, Diana, there isn't more than a cupful in the kettle! There, I've filled it up,
and, Mary Joe, you may put some wood in the stove. I don't want to hurt your feelings but it seems
to me you might have thought of this before if you'd any imagination. Now, I'll undress Minnie May
and put her to bed and you try to find some soft flannel cloths, Diana. I'm going to give her a dose
of ipecac first of all."
Minnie May did not take kindly to the ipecac but Anne had not brought up three pairs of twins for
nothing. Down that ipecac went, not only once, but many times during the long, anxious night when
the two little girls worked patiently over the suffering Minnie May, and Young Mary Joe, honestly
anxious to do all she could, kept up a roaring fire and heated more water than would have been
needed for a hospital of croupy babies.
It was three o'clock when Matthew came with a doctor, for he had been obliged to go all the way
to Spencervale for one. But the pressing need for assistance was past. Minnie May was much
better and was sleeping soundly.
"I was awfully near giving up in despair," explained Anne. "She got worse and worse until she
was sicker than ever the Hammond twins were, even the last pair. I actually thought she was going
to choke to death. I gave her every drop of ipecac in that bottle and when the last dose went down I
said to myself—not to Diana or Young Mary Joe, because I didn't want to worry them any more
than they were worried, but I had to say it to myself just to relieve my feelings—'This is the last
lingering hope and I fear, tis a vain one.' But in about three minutes she coughed up the phlegm
and began to get better right away. You must just imagine my relief, doctor, because I can't express
it in words. You know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words."
"Yes, I know," nodded the doctor. He looked at Anne as if he were thinking some things about
her that couldn't be expressed in words. Later on, however, he expressed them to Mr. and Mrs.
Barry.
"That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthbert's is as smart as they make 'em. I tell you
she saved that baby's life, for it would have been too late by the time I got there. She seems to
have a skill and presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw anything
like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case to me."
Anne had gone home in the wonderful, white-frosted winter morning, heavy eyed from loss of
sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Matthew as they crossed the long white field and walked
under the glittering fairy arch of the Lover's Lane maples.
"Oh, Matthew, isn't it a wonderful morning? The world looks like something God had just
imagined for His own pleasure, doesn't it? Those trees look as if I could blow them away with a
breath—pouf! I'm so glad I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren't you? And I'm so glad
Mrs. Hammond had three pairs of twins after all. If she hadn't I mightn't have known what to do for
Minnie May. I'm real sorry I was ever cross with Mrs. Hammond for having twins. But, oh, Matthew,
I'm so sleepy. I can't go to school. I just know I couldn't keep my eyes open and I'd be so stupid. But
I hate to stay home, for Gil—some of the others will get head of the class, and it's so hard to get up
again—although of course the harder it is the more satisfaction you have when you do get up,
haven't you?"
"Well now, I guess you'll manage all right," said Matthew, looking at Anne's white little face and
the dark shadows under her eyes. "You just go right to bed and have a good sleep. I'll do all the
chores."
Anne accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it was well on in the white and
rosy winter afternoon when she awoke and descended to the kitchen where Marilla, who had
arrived home in the meantime, was sitting knitting.
"Oh, did you see the Premier?" exclaimed Anne at once. "What did he look like Marilla?"
"Well, he never got to be Premier on account of his looks," said Marilla. "Such a nose as that
man had! But he can speak. I was proud of being a Conservative. Rachel Lynde, of course, being
a Liberal, had no use for him. Your dinner is in the oven, Anne, and you can get yourself some blue
plum preserve out of the pantry. I guess you're hungry. Matthew has been telling me about last
night. I must say it was fortunate you knew what to do. I wouldn't have had any idea myself, for I
never saw a case of croup. There now, never mind talking till you've had your dinner. I can tell by the
look of you that you're just full up with speeches, but they'll keep."
Marilla had something to tell Anne, but she did not tell it just then for she knew if she did Anne's
consequent excitement would lift her clear out of the region of such material matters as appetite or
dinner. Not until Anne had finished her saucer of blue plums did Marilla say:
"Mrs. Barry was here this afternoon, Anne. She wanted to see you, but I wouldn't wake you up.
She says you saved Minnie May's life, and she is very sorry she acted as she did in that affair of
the currant wine. She says she knows now you didn't mean to set Diana drunk, and she hopes
you'll forgive her and be good friends with Diana again. You're to go over this evening if you like for
Diana can't stir outside the door on account of a bad cold she caught last night. Now, Anne Shirley,
for pity's sake don't fly up into the air."
The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Anne's expression and attitude
as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated with the flame of her spirit.
"Oh, Marilla, can I go right now—without washing my dishes? I'll wash them when I come back,
but I cannot tie myself down to anything so unromantic as dishwashing at this thrilling moment."
"Yes, yes, run along," said Marilla indulgently. "Anne Shirley—are you crazy? Come back this
instant and put something on you. I might as well call to the wind. She's gone without a cap or wrap.
Look at her tearing through the orchard with her hair streaming. It'll be a mercy if she doesn't catch
her death of cold."
Anne came dancing home in the purple winter twilight across the snowy places. Afar in the
southwest was the great shimmering, pearl-like sparkle of an evening star in a sky that was pale
golden and ethereal rose over gleaming white spaces and dark glens of spruce. The tinkles of
sleigh bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air, but their music was
not sweeter than the song in Anne's heart and on her lips.
"You see before you a perfectly happy person, Marilla," she announced. "I'm perfectly happy
—yes, in spite of my red hair. Just at present I have a soul above red hair. Mrs. Barry kissed me
and cried and said she was so sorry and she could never repay me. I felt fearfully embarrassed,
Marilla, but I just said as politely as I could, 'I have no hard feelings for you, Mrs. Barry. I assure you
once for all that I did not mean to intoxicate Diana and henceforth I shall cover the past with the
mantle of oblivion.' That was a pretty dignified way of speaking wasn't it, Marilla?"
"I felt that I was heaping coals of fire on Mrs. Barry's head. And Diana and I had a lovely
afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch her aunt over at Carmody taught her. Not a
soul in Avonlea knows it but us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to anyone else.
Diana gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of poetry:

"If you love me as I love you


Nothing but death can part us two.

"And that is true, Marilla. We're going to ask Mr. Phillips to let us sit together in school again,
and Gertie Pye can go with Minnie Andrews. We had an elegant tea. Mrs. Barry had the very best
china set out, Marilla, just as if I was real company. I can't tell you what a thrill it gave me. Nobody
ever used their very best china on my account before. And we had fruit cake and pound cake and
doughnuts and two kinds of preserves, Marilla. And Mrs. Barry asked me if I took tea and said 'Pa,
why don't you pass the biscuits to Anne?' It must be lovely to be grown up, Marilla, when just being
treated as if you were is so nice."
"I don't know about that," said Marilla, with a brief sigh.
"Well, anyway, when I am grown up," said Anne decidedly, "I'm always going to talk to little girls
as if they were too, and I'll never laugh when they use big words. I know from sorrowful experience
how that hurts one's feelings. After tea Diana and I made taffy. The taffy wasn't very good, I
suppose because neither Diana nor I had ever made any before. Diana left me to stir it while she
buttered the plates and I forgot and let it burn; and then when we set it out on the platform to cool
the cat walked over one plate and that had to be thrown away. But the making of it was splendid
fun. Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me to come over as often as I could and Diana
stood at the window and threw kisses to me all the way down to Lover's Lane. I assure you, Marilla,
that I feel like praying tonight and I'm going to think out a special brand-new prayer in honor of the
occasion."
CHAPTER XIX. A Concert a Catastrophe and a Confession
"MARILLA, can I go over to see Diana just for a minute?" asked Anne, running breathlessly down
from the east gable one February evening.
"I don't see what you want to be traipsing about after dark for," said Marilla shortly. "You and
Diana walked home from school together and then stood down there in the snow for half an hour
more, your tongues going the whole blessed time, clickety-clack. So I don't think you're very badly
off to see her again."
"But she wants to see me," pleaded Anne. "She has something very important to tell me."
"How do you know she has?"
"Because she just signaled to me from her window. We have arranged a way to signal with our
candles and cardboard. We set the candle on the window sill and make flashes by passing the
cardboard back and forth. So many flashes mean a certain thing. It was my idea, Marilla."
"I'll warrant you it was," said Marilla emphatically. "And the next thing you'll be setting fire to the
curtains with your signaling nonsense."
"Oh, we're very careful, Marilla. And it's so interesting. Two flashes mean, 'Are you there?' Three
mean 'yes' and four 'no.' Five mean, 'Come over as soon as possible, because I have something
important to reveal.' Diana has just signaled five flashes, and I'm really suffering to know what it is."
"Well, you needn't suffer any longer," said Marilla sarcastically. "You can go, but you're to be
back here in just ten minutes, remember that."
Anne did remember it and was back in the stipulated time, although probably no mortal will ever
know just what it cost her to confine the discussion of Diana's important communication within the
limits of ten minutes. But at least she had made good use of them.
"Oh, Marilla, what do you think? You know tomorrow is Diana's birthday. Well, her mother told her
she could ask me to go home with her from school and stay all night with her. And her cousins are
coming over from Newbridge in a big pung sleigh to go to the Debating Club concert at the hall
tomorrow night. And they are going to take Diana and me to the concert—if you'll let me go, that is.
You will, won't you, Marilla? Oh, I feel so excited."
"You can calm down then, because you're not going. You're better at home in your own bed, and
as for that club concert, it's all nonsense, and little girls should not be allowed to go out to such
places at all."
"I'm sure the Debating Club is a most respectable affair," pleaded Anne.
"I'm not saying it isn't. But you're not going to begin gadding about to concerts and staying out all
hours of the night. Pretty doings for children. I'm surprised at Mrs. Barry's letting Diana go."
"But it's such a very special occasion," mourned Anne, on the verge of tears. "Diana has only
one birthday in a year. It isn't as if birthdays were common things, Marilla. Prissy Andrews is going
to recite 'Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight.' That is such a good moral piece, Marilla, I'm sure it would
do me lots of good to hear it. And the choir are going to sing four lovely pathetic songs that are
pretty near as good as hymns. And oh, Marilla, the minister is going to take part; yes, indeed, he is;
he's going to give an address. That will be just about the same thing as a sermon. Please, mayn't I
go, Marilla?"
"You heard what I said, Anne, didn't you? Take off your boots now and go to bed. It's past eight."
"There's just one more thing, Marilla," said Anne, with the air of producing the last shot in her
locker. "Mrs. Barry told Diana that we might sleep in the spare-room bed. Think of the honor of
your little Anne being put in the spare-room bed."
"It's an honor you'll have to get along without. Go to bed, Anne, and don't let me hear another
word out of you."
When Anne, with tears rolling over her cheeks, had gone sorrowfully upstairs, Matthew, who had
been apparently sound asleep on the lounge during the whole dialogue, opened his eyes and said
decidedly:
"Well now, Marilla, I think you ought to let Anne go."
"I don't then," retorted Marilla. "Who's bringing this child up, Matthew, you or me?"
"Well now, you," admitted Matthew.
"Don't interfere then."
"Well now, I ain't interfering. It ain't interfering to have your own opinion. And my opinion is that
you ought to let Anne go."
"You'd think I ought to let Anne go to the moon if she took the notion, I've no doubt" was Marilla's
amiable rejoinder. "I might have let her spend the night with Diana, if that was all. But I don't
approve of this concert plan. She'd go there and catch cold like as not, and have her head filled up
with nonsense and excitement. It would unsettle her for a week. I understand that child's disposition
and what's good for it better than you, Matthew."
"I think you ought to let Anne go," repeated Matthew firmly. Argument was not his strong point,
but holding fast to his opinion certainly was. Marilla gave a gasp of helplessness and took refuge
in silence. The next morning, when Anne was washing the breakfast dishes in the pantry, Matthew
paused on his way out to the barn to say to Marilla again:
"I think you ought to let Anne go, Marilla."
For a moment Marilla looked things not lawful to be uttered. Then she yielded to the inevitable
and said tartly:
"Very well, she can go, since nothing else'll please you."
Anne flew out of the pantry, dripping dishcloth in hand.
"Oh, Marilla, Marilla, say those blessed words again."
"I guess once is enough to say them. This is Matthew's doings and I wash my hands of it. If you
catch pneumonia sleeping in a strange bed or coming out of that hot hall in the middle of the night,
don't blame me, blame Matthew. Anne Shirley, you're dripping greasy water all over the floor. I
never saw such a careless child."
"Oh, I know I'm a great trial to you, Marilla," said Anne repentantly. "I make so many mistakes.
But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might. I'll get some sand and scrub up
the spots before I go to school. Oh, Marilla, my heart was just set on going to that concert. I never
was to a concert in my life, and when the other girls talk about them in school I feel so out of it. You
didn't know just how I felt about it, but you see Matthew did. Matthew understands me, and it's so
nice to be understood, Marilla."
Anne was too excited to do herself justice as to lessons that morning in school. Gilbert Blythe
spelled her down in class and left her clear out of sight in mental arithmetic. Anne's consequent
humiliation was less than it might have been, however, in view of the concert and the spare-room
bed. She and Diana talked so constantly about it all day that with a stricter teacher than Mr. Phillips
dire disgrace must inevitably have been their portion.
Anne felt that she could not have borne it if she had not been going to the concert, for nothing
else was discussed that day in school. The Avonlea Debating Club, which met fortnightly all winter,
had had several smaller free entertainments; but this was to be a big affair, admission ten cents, in
aid of the library. The Avonlea young people had been practicing for weeks, and all the scholars
were especially interested in it by reason of older brothers and sisters who were going to take
part. Everybody in school over nine years of age expected to go, except Carrie Sloane, whose
father shared Marilla's opinions about small girls going out to night concerts. Carrie Sloane cried
into her grammar all the afternoon and felt that life was not worth living.
For Anne the real excitement began with the dismissal of school and increased therefrom in
crescendo until it reached to a crash of positive ecstasy in the concert itself. They had a "perfectly
elegant tea;" and then came the delicious occupation of dressing in Diana's little room upstairs.
Diana did Anne's front hair in the new pompadour style and Anne tied Diana's bows with the
especial knack she possessed; and they experimented with at least half a dozen different ways of
arranging their back hair. At last they were ready, cheeks scarlet and eyes glowing with excitement.
True, Anne could not help a little pang when she contrasted her plain black tam and shapeless,
tight-sleeved, homemade gray-cloth coat with Diana's jaunty fur cap and smart little jacket. But she
remembered in time that she had an imagination and could use it.
Then Diana's cousins, the Murrays from Newbridge, came; they all crowded into the big pung
sleigh, among straw and furry robes. Anne reveled in the drive to the hall, slipping along over the
satin-smooth roads with the snow crisping under the runners. There was a magnificent sunset, and
the snowy hills and deep-blue water of the St. Lawrence Gulf seemed to rim in the splendor like a
huge bowl of pearl and sapphire brimmed with wine and fire. Tinkles of sleigh bells and distant
laughter, that seemed like the mirth of wood elves, came from every quarter.
"Oh, Diana," breathed Anne, squeezing Diana's mittened hand under the fur robe, "isn't it all like
a beautiful dream? Do I really look the same as usual? I feel so different that it seems to me it must
show in my looks."
"You look awfully nice," said Diana, who having just received a compliment from one of her
cousins, felt that she ought to pass it on. "You've got the loveliest color."
The program that night was a series of "thrills" for at least one listener in the audience, and, as
Anne assured Diana, every succeeding thrill was thrillier than the last. When Prissy Andrews,
attired in a new pink-silk waist with a string of pearls about her smooth white throat and real
carnations in her hair—rumor whispered that the master had sent all the way to town for them for
her—"climbed the slimy ladder, dark without one ray of light," Anne shivered in luxurious sympathy;
when the choir sang "Far Above the Gentle Daisies" Anne gazed at the ceiling as if it were
frescoed with angels; when Sam Sloane proceeded to explain and illustrate "How Sockery Set a
Hen" Anne laughed until people sitting near her laughed too, more out of sympathy with her than
with amusement at a selection that was rather threadbare even in Avonlea; and when Mr. Phillips
gave Mark Antony's oration over the dead body of Caesar in the most heart-stirring tones—looking
at Prissy Andrews at the end of every sentence—Anne felt that she could rise and mutiny on the
spot if but one Roman citizen led the way.
Only one number on the program failed to interest her. When Gilbert Blythe recited "Bingen on
the Rhine" Anne picked up Rhoda Murray's library book and read it until he had finished, when she
sat rigidly stiff and motionless while Diana clapped her hands until they tingled.
It was eleven when they got home, sated with dissipation, but with the exceeding sweet pleasure
of talking it all over still to come. Everybody seemed asleep and the house was dark and silent.
Anne and Diana tiptoed into the parlor, a long narrow room out of which the spare room opened. It
was pleasantly warm and dimly lighted by the embers of a fire in the grate.
"Let's undress here," said Diana. "It's so nice and warm."
"Hasn't it been a delightful time?" sighed Anne rapturously. "It must be splendid to get up and
recite there. Do you suppose we will ever be asked to do it, Diana?"
"Yes, of course, someday. They're always wanting the big scholars to recite. Gilbert Blythe does
often and he's only two years older than us. Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him?
When he came to the line,
"THERE'S ANOTHER, not A SISTER,

he looked right down at you."


"Diana," said Anne with dignity, "you are my bosom friend, but I cannot allow even you to speak
to me of that person. Are you ready for bed? Let's run a race and see who'll get to the bed first."
The suggestion appealed to Diana. The two little white-clad figures flew down the long room,
through the spare-room door, and bounded on the bed at the same moment. And then—something
—moved beneath them, there was a gasp and a cry—and somebody said in muffled accents:
"Merciful goodness!"
Anne and Diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed and out of the room. They
only knew that after one frantic rush they found themselves tiptoeing shiveringly upstairs.
"Oh, who was it—WHAT was it?" whispered Anne, her teeth chattering with cold and fright.
"It was Aunt Josephine," said Diana, gasping with laughter. "Oh, Anne, it was Aunt Josephine,
however she came to be there. Oh, and I know she will be furious. It's dreadful—it's really dreadful
—but did you ever know anything so funny, Anne?"
"Who is your Aunt Josephine?"
"She's father's aunt and she lives in Charlottetown. She's awfully old—seventy anyhow—and I
don't believe she was EVER a little girl. We were expecting her out for a visit, but not so soon.
She's awfully prim and proper and she'll scold dreadfully about this, I know. Well, we'll have to sleep
with Minnie May—and you can't think how she kicks."
Miss Josephine Barry did not appear at the early breakfast the next morning. Mrs. Barry smiled
kindly at the two little girls.
"Did you have a good time last night? I tried to stay awake until you came home, for I wanted to
tell you Aunt Josephine had come and that you would have to go upstairs after all, but I was so tired
I fell asleep. I hope you didn't disturb your aunt, Diana."
Diana preserved a discreet silence, but she and Anne exchanged furtive smiles of guilty
amusement across the table. Anne hurried home after breakfast and so remained in blissful
ignorance of the disturbance which presently resulted in the Barry household until the late
afternoon, when she went down to Mrs. Lynde's on an errand for Marilla.
"So you and Diana nearly frightened poor old Miss Barry to death last night?" said Mrs. Lynde
severely, but with a twinkle in her eye. "Mrs. Barry was here a few minutes ago on her way to
Carmody. She's feeling real worried over it. Old Miss Barry was in a terrible temper when she got
up this morning—and Josephine Barry's temper is no joke, I can tell you that. She wouldn't speak
to Diana at all."
"It wasn't Diana's fault," said Anne contritely. "It was mine. I suggested racing to see who would
get into bed first."
"I knew it!" said Mrs. Lynde, with the exultation of a correct guesser. "I knew that idea came out
of your head. Well, it's made a nice lot of trouble, that's what. Old Miss Barry came out to stay for a
month, but she declares she won't stay another day and is going right back to town tomorrow,
Sunday and all as it is. She'd have gone today if they could have taken her. She had promised to
pay for a quarter's music lessons for Diana, but now she is determined to do nothing at all for such
a tomboy. Oh, I guess they had a lively time of it there this morning. The Barrys must feel cut up.
Old Miss Barry is rich and they'd like to keep on the good side of her. Of course, Mrs. Barry didn't
say just that to me, but I'm a pretty good judge of human nature, that's what."
"I'm such an unlucky girl," mourned Anne. "I'm always getting into scrapes myself and getting my
best friends—people I'd shed my heart's blood for—into them too. Can you tell me why it is so,
Mrs. Lynde?"
"It's because you're too heedless and impulsive, child, that's what. You never stop to think
—whatever comes into your head to say or do you say or do it without a moment's reflection."
"Oh, but that's the best of it," protested Anne. "Something just flashes into your mind, so exciting,
and you must out with it. If you stop to think it over you spoil it all. Haven't you never felt that yourself,
Mrs. Lynde?"
No, Mrs. Lynde had not. She shook her head sagely.
"You must learn to think a little, Anne, that's what. The proverb you need to go by is 'Look before
you leap'—especially into spare-room beds."
Mrs. Lynde laughed comfortably over her mild joke, but Anne remained pensive. She saw
nothing to laugh at in the situation, which to her eyes appeared very serious. When she left Mrs.
Lynde's she took her way across the crusted fields to Orchard Slope. Diana met her at the kitchen
door.
"Your Aunt Josephine was very cross about it, wasn't she?" whispered Anne.
"Yes," answered Diana, stifling a giggle with an apprehensive glance over her shoulder at the
closed sitting-room door. "She was fairly dancing with rage, Anne. Oh, how she scolded. She said I
was the worst-behaved girl she ever saw and that my parents ought to be ashamed of the way they
had brought me up. She says she won't stay and I'm sure I don't care. But Father and Mother do."
"Why didn't you tell them it was my fault?" demanded Anne.
"It's likely I'd do such a thing, isn't it?" said Diana with just scorn. "I'm no telltale, Anne Shirley, and
anyhow I was just as much to blame as you."
"Well, I'm going in to tell her myself," said Anne resolutely.
Diana stared.
"Anne Shirley, you'd never! why—she'll eat you alive!"
"Don't frighten me any more than I am frightened," implored Anne. "I'd rather walk up to a
cannon's mouth. But I've got to do it, Diana. It was my fault and I've got to confess. I've had practice
in confessing, fortunately."
"Well, she's in the room," said Diana. "You can go in if you want to. I wouldn't dare. And I don't
believe you'll do a bit of good."
With this encouragement Anne bearded the lion in its den—that is to say, walked resolutely up to
the sitting-room door and knocked faintly. A sharp "Come in" followed.
Miss Josephine Barry, thin, prim, and rigid, was knitting fiercely by the fire, her wrath quite
unappeased and her eyes snapping through her gold-rimmed glasses. She wheeled around in her
chair, expecting to see Diana, and beheld a white-faced girl whose great eyes were brimmed up
with a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror.
"Who are you?" demanded Miss Josephine Barry, without ceremony.
"I'm Anne of Green Gables," said the small visitor tremulously, clasping her hands with her
characteristic gesture, "and I've come to confess, if you please."
"Confess what?"
"That it was all my fault about jumping into bed on you last night. I suggested it. Diana would
never have thought of such a thing, I am sure. Diana is a very ladylike girl, Miss Barry. So you must
see how unjust it is to blame her."
"Oh, I must, hey? I rather think Diana did her share of the jumping at least. Such carryings on in a
respectable house!"
"But we were only in fun," persisted Anne. "I think you ought to forgive us, Miss Barry, now that
we've apologized. And anyhow, please forgive Diana and let her have her music lessons. Diana's
heart is set on her music lessons, Miss Barry, and I know too well what it is to set your heart on a
thing and not get it. If you must be cross with anyone, be cross with me. I've been so used in my
early days to having people cross at me that I can endure it much better than Diana can."
Much of the snap had gone out of the old lady's eyes by this time and was replaced by a twinkle
of amused interest. But she still said severely:
"I don't think it is any excuse for you that you were only in fun. Little girls never indulged in that
kind of fun when I was young. You don't know what it is to be awakened out of a sound sleep, after
a long and arduous journey, by two great girls coming bounce down on you."
"I don't KNOW, but I can IMAGINE," said Anne eagerly. "I'm sure it must have been very
disturbing. But then, there is our side of it too. Have you any imagination, Miss Barry? If you have,
just put yourself in our place. We didn't know there was anybody in that bed and you nearly scared
us to death. It was simply awful the way we felt. And then we couldn't sleep in the spare room after
being promised. I suppose you are used to sleeping in spare rooms. But just imagine what you
would feel like if you were a little orphan girl who had never had such an honor."
All the snap had gone by this time. Miss Barry actually laughed—a sound which caused Diana,
waiting in speechless anxiety in the kitchen outside, to give a great gasp of relief.
"I'm afraid my imagination is a little rusty—it's so long since I used it," she said. "I dare say your
claim to sympathy is just as strong as mine. It all depends on the way we look at it. Sit down here
and tell me about yourself."
"I am very sorry I can't," said Anne firmly. "I would like to, because you seem like an interesting
lady, and you might even be a kindred spirit although you don't look very much like it. But it is my
duty to go home to Miss Marilla Cuthbert. Miss Marilla Cuthbert is a very kind lady who has taken
me to bring up properly. She is doing her best, but it is very discouraging work. You must not blame
her because I jumped on the bed. But before I go I do wish you would tell me if you will forgive
Diana and stay just as long as you meant to in Avonlea."
"I think perhaps I will if you will come over and talk to me occasionally," said Miss Barry.
That evening Miss Barry gave Diana a silver bangle bracelet and told the senior members of the
household that she had unpacked her valise.
"I've made up my mind to stay simply for the sake of getting better acquainted with that Anne-
girl," she said frankly. "She amuses me, and at my time of life an amusing person is a rarity."
Marilla's only comment when she heard the story was, "I told you so." This was for Matthew's
benefit.
Miss Barry stayed her month out and over. She was a more agreeable guest than usual, for Anne
kept her in good humor. They became firm friends.
When Miss Barry went away she said:
"Remember, you Anne-girl, when you come to town you're to visit me and I'll put you in my very
sparest spare-room bed to sleep."
"Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all," Anne confided to Marilla. "You wouldn't think so to
look at her, but she is. You don't find it right out at first, as in Matthew's case, but after a while you
come to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are
so many of them in the world."
CHAPTER XX. A Good Imagination Gone Wrong
Spring had come once more to Green Gables—the beautiful capricious, reluctant Canadian
spring, lingering along through April and May in a succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink
sunsets and miracles of resurrection and growth. The maples in Lover's Lane were red budded
and little curly ferns pushed up around the Dryad's Bubble. Away up in the barrens, behind Mr. Silas
Sloane's place, the Mayflowers blossomed out, pink and white stars of sweetness under their
brown leaves. All the school girls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them, coming
home in the clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of flowery spoil.
"I'm so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no Mayflowers," said Anne. "Diana
says perhaps they have something better, but there couldn't be anything better than Mayflowers,
could there, Marilla? And Diana says if they don't know what they are like they don't miss them. But
I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it would be TRAGIC, Marilla, not to know what
Mayflowers are like and NOT to miss them. Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I
think they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this is their heaven. But we
had a splendid time today, Marilla. We had our lunch down in a big mossy hollow by an old well
—such a ROMANTIC spot. Charlie Sloane dared Arty Gillis to jump over it, and Arty did because
he wouldn't take a dare. Nobody would in school. It is very FASHIONABLE to dare. Mr. Phillips
gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews and I heard him to say 'sweets to the sweet.'
He got that out of a book, I know; but it shows he has some imagination. I was offered some
Mayflowers too, but I rejected them with scorn. I can't tell you the person's name because I have
vowed never to let it cross my lips. We made wreaths of the Mayflowers and put them on our hats;
and when the time came to go home we marched in procession down the road, two by two, with
our bouquets and wreaths, singing 'My Home on the Hill.' Oh, it was so thrilling, Marilla. All Mr. Silas
Sloane's folks rushed out to see us and everybody we met on the road stopped and stared after
us. We made a real sensation."
"Not much wonder! Such silly doings!" was Marilla's response.
After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled with them. Anne walked
through it on her way to school with reverent steps and worshiping eyes, as if she trod on holy
ground.
"Somehow," she told Diana, "when I'm going through here I don't really care whether Gil
—whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not. But when I'm up in school it's all different and I
care as much as ever. There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm
such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable,
but then it wouldn't be half so interesting."
One June evening, when the orchards were pink blossomed again, when the frogs were singing
silverly sweet in the marshes about the head of the Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of
the savor of clover fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window. She had
been studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the book, so she had fallen into wide-
eyed reverie, looking out past the boughs of the Snow Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of
blossom.
In all essential respects the little gable chamber was unchanged. The walls were as white, the
pincushion as hard, the chairs as stiffly and yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of the
room was altered. It was full of a new vital, pulsing personality that seemed to pervade it and to be
quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses and ribbons, and even of the cracked blue jug
full of apple blossoms on the table. It was as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its vivid
occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestried the bare room with
splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine. Presently Marilla came briskly in with some of
Anne's freshly ironed school aprons. She hung them over a chair and sat down with a short sigh.
She had had one of her headaches that afternoon, and although the pain had gone she felt weak
and "tuckered out," as she expressed it. Anne looked at her with eyes limpid with sympathy.
"I do truly wish I could have had the headache in your place, Marilla. I would have endured it
joyfully for your sake."
"I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me rest," said Marilla. "You seem
to have got on fairly well and made fewer mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn't exactly
necessary to starch Matthew's handkerchiefs! And most people when they put a pie in the oven to
warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of leaving it to be burned to a
crisp. But that doesn't seem to be your way evidently."
Headaches always left Marilla somewhat sarcastic.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne penitently. "I never thought about that pie from the moment I put it in
the oven till now, although I felt INSTINCTIVELY that there was something missing on the dinner
table. I was firmly resolved, when you left me in charge this morning, not to imagine anything, but
keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until I put the pie in, and then an irresistible temptation
came to me to imagine I was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome
knight riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that is how I came to forget the pie. I didn't
know I starched the handkerchiefs. All the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a name for a
new island Diana and I have discovered up the brook. It's the most ravishing spot, Marilla. There
are two maple trees on it and the brook flows right around it. At last it struck me that it would be
splendid to call it Victoria Island because we found it on the Queen's birthday. Both Diana and I are
very loyal. But I'm sorry about that pie and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra good today
because it's an anniversary. Do you remember what happened this day last year, Marilla?"
"No, I can't think of anything special."
"Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never forget it. It was the turning point
in my life. Of course it wouldn't seem so important to you. I've been here for a year and I've been so
happy. Of course, I've had my troubles, but one can live down troubles. Are you sorry you kept me,
Marilla?"
"No, I can't say I'm sorry," said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how she could have lived
before Anne came to Green Gables, "no, not exactly sorry. If you've finished your lessons, Anne, I
want you to run over and ask Mrs. Barry if she'll lend me Diana's apron pattern."
"Oh—it's—it's too dark," cried Anne.
"Too dark? Why, it's only twilight. And goodness knows you've gone over often enough after
dark."
"I'll go over early in the morning," said Anne eagerly. "I'll get up at sunrise and go over, Marilla."
"What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern to cut out your new apron this
evening. Go at once and be smart too."
"I'll have to go around by the road, then," said Anne, taking up her hat reluctantly.
"Go by the road and waste half an hour! I'd like to catch you!"
"I can't go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla," cried Anne desperately.
Marilla stared.
"The Haunted Wood! Are you crazy? What under the canopy is the Haunted Wood?"
"The spruce wood over the brook," said Anne in a whisper.
"Fiddlesticks! There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere. Who has been telling you
such stuff?"
"Nobody," confessed Anne. "Diana and I just imagined the wood was
haunted. All the places around here are so—so—COMMONPLACE. We just got
this up for our own amusement. We began it in April. A haunted wood is
so very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce grove because it's so
gloomy. Oh, we have imagined the most harrowing things. There's a white
lady walks along the brook just about this time of the night and wrings
her hands and utters wailing cries. She appears when there is to be a
death in the family. And the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the
corner up by Idlewild; it creeps up behind you and lays its cold fingers
on your hand—so. Oh, Marilla, it gives me a shudder to think of it. And
there's a headless man stalks up and down the path and skeletons glower
at you between the boughs. Oh, Marilla, I wouldn't go through the
Haunted Wood after dark now for anything. I'd be sure that white things
would reach out from behind the trees and grab me."

"Did ever anyone hear the like!" ejaculated Marilla, who had
listened in dumb amazement. "Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell me you
believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?"

"Not believe EXACTLY," faltered Anne. "At least, I don't believe it in daylight. But after dark,
Marilla, it's different. That is when ghosts walk."
"There are no such things as ghosts, Anne."
"Oh, but there are, Marilla," cried Anne eagerly. "I know people who have seen them. And they
are respectable people. Charlie Sloane says that his grandmother saw his grandfather driving
home the cows one night after he'd been buried for a year. You know Charlie Sloane's
grandmother wouldn't tell a story for anything. She's a very religious woman. And Mrs. Thomas's
father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with its head cut off hanging by a strip of skin.
He said he knew it was the spirit of his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine
days. He didn't, but he died two years after, so you see it was really true. And Ruby Gillis says—"
"Anne Shirley," interrupted Marilla firmly, "I never want to hear you talking in this fashion again.
I've had my doubts about that imagination of yours right along, and if this is going to be the
outcome of it, I won't countenance any such doings. You'll go right over to Barry's, and you'll go
through that spruce grove, just for a lesson and a warning to you. And never let me hear a word out
of your head about haunted woods again."
Anne might plead and cry as she liked—and did, for her terror was very real. Her imagination
had run away with her and she held the spruce grove in mortal dread after nightfall. But Marilla was
inexorable. She marched the shrinking ghost-seer down to the spring and ordered her to proceed
straightaway over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of wailing ladies and headless specters
beyond.
"Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?" sobbed Anne. "What would you feel like if a white thing
did snatch me up and carry me off?"
"I'll risk it," said Marilla unfeelingly. "You know I always mean what I say. I'll cure you of imagining
ghosts into places. March, now."
Anne marched. That is, she stumbled over the bridge and went shuddering up the horrible dim
path beyond. Anne never forgot that walk. Bitterly did she repent the license she had given to her
imagination. The goblins of her fancy lurked in every shadow about her, reaching out their cold,
fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them into being. A white strip of
birch bark blowing up from the hollow over the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still.
The long-drawn wail of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out the perspiration in
beads on her forehead. The swoop of bats in the darkness over her was as the wings of unearthly
creatures. When she reached Mr. William Bell's field she fled across it as if pursued by an army of
white things, and arrived at the Barry kitchen door so out of breath that she could hardly gasp out
her request for the apron pattern. Diana was away so that she had no excuse to linger. The
dreadful return journey had to be faced. Anne went back over it with shut eyes, preferring to take
the risk of dashing her brains out among the boughs to that of seeing a white thing. When she
finally stumbled over the log bridge she drew one long shivering breath of relief.
"Well, so nothing caught you?" said Marilla unsympathetically.
"Oh, Mar—Marilla," chattered Anne, "I'll b-b-be contt-tented with c-c-commonplace places after
this."
CHAPTER XXI. A New Departure in Flavorings
"Dear me, there is nothing but meetings and partings in this world, as Mrs. Lynde says,"
remarked Anne plaintively, putting her slate and books down on the kitchen table on the last day of
June and wiping her red eyes with a very damp handkerchief. "Wasn't it fortunate, Marilla, that I
took an extra handkerchief to school today? I had a presentiment that it would be needed."
"I never thought you were so fond of Mr. Phillips that you'd require two handkerchiefs to dry your
tears just because he was going away," said Marilla.
"I don't think I was crying because I was really so very fond of him," reflected Anne. "I just cried
because all the others did. It was Ruby Gillis started it. Ruby Gillis has always declared she hated
Mr. Phillips, but just as soon as he got up to make his farewell speech she burst into tears. Then all
the girls began to cry, one after the other. I tried to hold out, Marilla. I tried to remember the time Mr.
Phillips made me sit with Gil—with a, boy; and the time he spelled my name without an e on the
blackboard; and how he said I was the worst dunce he ever saw at geometry and laughed at my
spelling; and all the times he had been so horrid and sarcastic; but somehow I couldn't, Marilla, and
I just had to cry too. Jane Andrews has been talking for a month about how glad she'd be when Mr.
Phillips went away and she declared she'd never shed a tear. Well, she was worse than any of us
and had to borrow a handkerchief from her brother—of course the boys didn't cry—because she
hadn't brought one of her own, not expecting to need it. Oh, Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips
made such a beautiful farewell speech beginning, 'The time has come for us to part.' It was very
affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too, Marilla. Oh, I felt dreadfully sorry and remorseful for all
the times I'd talked in school and drawn pictures of him on my slate and made fun of him and
Prissy. I can tell you I wished I'd been a model pupil like Minnie Andrews. She hadn't anything on
her conscience. The girls cried all the way home from school. Carrie Sloane kept saying every few
minutes, 'The time has come for us to part,' and that would start us off again whenever we were in
any danger of cheering up. I do feel dreadfully sad, Marilla. But one can't feel quite in the depths of
despair with two months' vacation before them, can they, Marilla? And besides, we met the new
minister and his wife coming from the station. For all I was feeling so bad about Mr. Phillips going
away I couldn't help taking a little interest in a new minister, could I? His wife is very pretty. Not
exactly regally lovely, of course—it wouldn't do, I suppose, for a minister to have a regally lovely
wife, because it might set a bad example. Mrs. Lynde says the minister's wife over at Newbridge
sets a very bad example because she dresses so fashionably. Our new minister's wife was
dressed in blue muslin with lovely puffed sleeves and a hat trimmed with roses. Jane Andrews said
she thought puffed sleeves were too worldly for a minister's wife, but I didn't make any such
uncharitable remark, Marilla, because I know what it is to long for puffed sleeves. Besides, she's
only been a minister's wife for a little while, so one should make allowances, shouldn't they? They
are going to board with Mrs. Lynde until the manse is ready."
If Marilla, in going down to Mrs. Lynde's that evening, was actuated by any motive save her
avowed one of returning the quilting frames she had borrowed the preceding winter, it was an
amiable weakness shared by most of the Avonlea people. Many a thing Mrs. Lynde had lent,
sometimes never expecting to see it again, came home that night in charge of the borrowers
thereof. A new minister, and moreover a minister with a wife, was a lawful object of curiosity in a
quiet little country settlement where sensations were few and far between.
Old Mr. Bentley, the minister whom Anne had found lacking in imagination, had been pastor of
Avonlea for eighteen years. He was a widower when he came, and a widower he remained,
despite the fact that gossip regularly married him to this, that, or the other one, every year of his
sojourn. In the preceding February he had resigned his charge and departed amid the regrets of
his people, most of whom had the affection born of long intercourse for their good old minister in
spite of his shortcomings as an orator. Since then the Avonlea church had enjoyed a variety of
religious dissipation in listening to the many and various candidates and "supplies" who came
Sunday after Sunday to preach on trial. These stood or fell by the judgment of the fathers and
mothers in Israel; but a certain small, red-haired girl who sat meekly in the corner of the old
Cuthbert pew also had her opinions about them and discussed the same in full with Matthew,
Marilla always declining from principle to criticize ministers in any shape or form.
"I don't think Mr. Smith would have done, Matthew" was Anne's final summing up. "Mrs. Lynde
says his delivery was so poor, but I think his worst fault was just like Mr. Bentley's—he had no
imagination. And Mr. Terry had too much; he let it run away with him just as I did mine in the matter
of the Haunted Wood. Besides, Mrs. Lynde says his theology wasn't sound. Mr. Gresham was a
very good man and a very religious man, but he told too many funny stories and made the people
laugh in church; he was undignified, and you must have some dignity about a minister, mustn't you,
Matthew? I thought Mr. Marshall was decidedly attractive; but Mrs. Lynde says he isn't married, or
even engaged, because she made special inquiries about him, and she says it would never do to
have a young unmarried minister in Avonlea, because he might marry in the congregation and that
would make trouble. Mrs. Lynde is a very farseeing woman, isn't she, Matthew? I'm very glad
they've called Mr. Allan. I liked him because his sermon was interesting and he prayed as if he
meant it and not just as if he did it because he was in the habit of it. Mrs. Lynde says he isn't
perfect, but she says she supposes we couldn't expect a perfect minister for seven hundred and
fifty dollars a year, and anyhow his theology is sound because she questioned him thoroughly on all
the points of doctrine. And she knows his wife's people and they are most respectable and the
women are all good housekeepers. Mrs. Lynde says that sound doctrine in the man and good
housekeeping in the woman make an ideal combination for a minister's family."
The new minister and his wife were a young, pleasant-faced couple, still on their honeymoon,
and full of all good and beautiful enthusiasms for their chosen lifework. Avonlea opened its heart to
them from the start. Old and young liked the frank, cheerful young man with his high ideals, and the
bright, gentle little lady who assumed the mistress-ship of the manse. With Mrs. Allan Anne fell
promptly and wholeheartedly in love. She had discovered another kindred spirit.
"Mrs. Allan is perfectly lovely," she announced one Sunday afternoon. "She's taken our class and
she's a splendid teacher. She said right away she didn't think it was fair for the teacher to ask all
the questions, and you know, Marilla, that is exactly what I've always thought. She said we could
ask her any question we liked and I asked ever so many. I'm good at asking questions, Marilla."
"I believe you" was Marilla's emphatic comment.
"Nobody else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was to be a Sunday-school
picnic this summer. I didn't think that was a very proper question to ask because it hadn't any
connection with the lesson—the lesson was about Daniel in the lions' den—but Mrs. Allan just
smiled and said she thought there would be. Mrs. Allan has a lovely smile; she has such
EXQUISITE dimples in her cheeks. I wish I had dimples in my cheeks, Marilla. I'm not half so skinny
as I was when I came here, but I have no dimples yet. If I had perhaps I could influence people for
good. Mrs. Allan said we ought always to try to influence other people for good. She talked so nice
about everything. I never knew before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always thought it was
kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan's isn't, and I'd like to be a Christian if I could be one like her. I
wouldn't want to be one like Mr. Superintendent Bell."
"It's very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said Marilla severely. "Mr. Bell is a real
good man."
"Oh, of course he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to get any comfort out of it. If I
could be good I'd dance and sing all day because I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to
dance and sing and of course it wouldn't be dignified in a minister's wife. But I can just feel she's
glad she's a Christian and that she'd be one even if she could get to heaven without it."
"I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon," said Marilla reflectively.
"They've been most everywhere but here. Let me see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to
have them. But don't say a word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he'd find
some excuse to be away that day. He'd got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn't mind him, but he's
going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new minister, and a new minister's wife will frighten
him to death."
"I'll be as secret as the dead," assured Anne. "But oh, Marilla, will you let me make a cake for the
occasion? I'd love to do something for Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by
this time."
"You can make a layer cake," promised Marilla.
Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. Having the minister and his
wife to tea was a serious and important undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be
eclipsed by any of the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She
talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they sat on the big red stones by the
Dryad's Bubble and made rainbows in the water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam.
"Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I'm to make in the morning, and the baking-
powder biscuits which Marilla will make just before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I
have had a busy two days of it. It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to tea. I never
went through such an experience before. You should just see our pantry. It's a sight to behold.
We're going to have jellied chicken and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and
yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, and fruit
cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and
pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the
minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, but I don't think
Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold
when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I
was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."
"It'll be good, all right," assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. "I'm sure that
piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant."
"Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them
to be good," sighed Anne, setting a particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I
shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, look, Diana, what a lovely
rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come out after we go away and take it for a scarf?"
"You know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's mother had found out about
the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over it. As a result Diana had abstained from
any further imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief
even in harmless dryads.
"But it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne. "Every night before I go to bed, I look out of my
window and wonder if the dryad is really sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror.
Sometimes I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don't give up your faith in
the dryad!"
Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too excited to sleep. She
had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in the spring on the preceding
evening; but nothing short of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary
matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake. When she finally shut the
oven door upon it she drew a long breath.
"I'm sure I haven't forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you think it will rise? Just suppose
perhaps the baking powder isn't good? I used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can
never be sure of getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated. Mrs.
Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says we'll never see the day when
a Tory Government will do it. Marilla, what if that cake doesn't rise?"
"We'll have plenty without it" was Marilla's unimpassioned way of looking at the subject.
The cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and feathery as golden foam.
Anne, flushed with delight, clapped it together with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination, saw Mrs.
Allan eating it and possibly asking for another piece!
"You'll be using the best tea set, of course, Marilla," she said. "Can I fix the table with ferns and
wild roses?"
"I think that's all nonsense," sniffed Marilla. "In my opinion it's the eatables that matter and not
flummery decorations."
"Mrs. Barry had HER table decorated," said Anne, who was not entirely guiltless of the wisdom
of the serpent, "and the minister paid her an elegant compliment. He said it was a feast for the eye
as well as the palate."
"Well, do as you like," said Marilla, who was quite determined not to be surpassed by Mrs. Barry
or anybody else. "Only mind you leave enough room for the dishes and the food."
Anne laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that should leave Mrs. Barry's
nowhere. Having abundance of roses and ferns and a very artistic taste of her own, she made that
tea table such a thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they exclaimed in
chorus over it loveliness.
"It's Anne's doings," said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that Mrs. Allan's approving smile was
almost too much happiness for this world.
Matthew was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness and Anne knew how. He
had been in such a state of shyness and nervousness that Marilla had given him up in despair, but
Anne took him in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in his best clothes and white
collar and talked to the minister not uninterestingly. He never said a word to Mrs. Allan, but that
perhaps was not to be expected.
All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne's layer cake was passed. Mrs. Allan, having already
been helped to a bewildering variety, declined it. But Marilla, seeing the disappointment on Anne's
face, said smilingly:
"Oh, you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan. Anne made it on purpose for you."
"In that case I must sample it," laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself to a plump triangle, as did also
the minister and Marilla.
Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression crossed her face; not a word
did she say, however, but steadily ate away at it. Marilla saw the expression and hastened to taste
the cake.
"Anne Shirley!" she exclaimed, "what on earth did you put into that cake?"
"Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla," cried Anne with a look of anguish. "Oh, isn't it all
right?"
"All right! It's simply horrible. Mr. Allan, don't try to eat it. Anne, taste it yourself. What flavoring did
you use?"
"Vanilla," said Anne, her face scarlet with mortification after tasting the cake. "Only vanilla. Oh,
Marilla, it must have been the baking powder. I had my suspicions of that bak—"
"Baking powder fiddlesticks! Go and bring me the bottle of vanilla you used."
Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially filled with a brown liquid and
labeled yellowly, "Best Vanilla."
Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it.
"Mercy on us, Anne, you've flavored that cake with ANODYNE LINIMENT. I broke the liniment
bottle last week and poured what was left into an old empty vanilla bottle. I suppose it's partly my
fault—I should have warned you—but for pity's sake why couldn't you have smelled it?"
Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace.
"I couldn't—I had such a cold!" and with this she fairly fled to the gable chamber, where she cast
herself on the bed and wept as one who refuses to be comforted.
Presently a light step sounded on the stairs and somebody entered the room.
"Oh, Marilla," sobbed Anne, without looking up, "I'm disgraced forever. I shall never be able to
live this down. It will get out—things always do get out in Avonlea. Diana will ask me how my cake
turned out and I shall have to tell her the truth. I shall always be pointed at as the girl who flavored a
cake with anodyne liniment. Gil—the boys in school will never get over laughing at it. Oh, Marilla, if
you have a spark of Christian pity don't tell me that I must go down and wash the dishes after this.
I'll wash them when the minister and his wife are gone, but I cannot ever look Mrs. Allan in the face
again. Perhaps she'll think I tried to poison her. Mrs. Lynde says she knows an orphan girl who
tried to poison her benefactor. But the liniment isn't poisonous. It's meant to be taken internally
—although not in cakes. Won't you tell Mrs. Allan so, Marilla?"
"Suppose you jump up and tell her so yourself," said a merry voice.
Anne flew up, to find Mrs. Allan standing by her bed, surveying her with laughing eyes.
"My dear little girl, you mustn't cry like this," she said, genuinely disturbed by Anne's tragic face.
"Why, it's all just a funny mistake that anybody might make."
"Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake," said Anne forlornly. "And I wanted to have that
cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan."
"Yes, I know, dear. And I assure you I appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness just as much
as if it had turned out all right. Now, you mustn't cry any more, but come down with me and show
me your flower garden. Miss Cuthbert tells me you have a little plot all your own. I want to see it, for
I'm very much interested in flowers."
Anne permitted herself to be led down and comforted, reflecting that it was really providential
that Mrs. Allan was a kindred spirit. Nothing more was said about the liniment cake, and when the
guests went away Anne found that she had enjoyed the evening more than could have been
expected, considering that terrible incident. Nevertheless, she sighed deeply.
"Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"
"I'll warrant you'll make plenty in it," said Marilla. "I never saw your beat for making mistakes,
Anne."
"Yes, and well I know it," admitted Anne mournfully. "But have you ever noticed one encouraging
thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice."
"I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones."
"Oh, don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and
when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through with them. That's a very comforting thought."
"Well, you'd better go and give that cake to the pigs," said Marilla. "It isn't fit for any human to
eat, not even Jerry Boute."
CHAPTER XXII. Anne is Invited Out to Tea
"And what are your eyes popping out of your head about. Now?" asked Marilla, when Anne had
just come in from a run to the post office. "Have you discovered another kindred spirit?"
Excitement hung around Anne like a garment, shone in her eyes, kindled in every feature. She had
come dancing up the lane, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellow sunshine and lazy shadows
of the August evening.
"No, Marilla, but oh, what do you think? I am invited to tea at the manse tomorrow afternoon! Mrs.
Allan left the letter for me at the post office. Just look at it, Marilla. 'Miss Anne Shirley, Green
Gables.' That is the first time I was ever called 'Miss.' Such a thrill as it gave me! I shall cherish it
forever among my choicest treasures."
"Mrs. Allan told me she meant to have all the members of her Sunday-school class to tea in turn,"
said Marilla, regarding the wonderful event very coolly. "You needn't get in such a fever over it. Do
learn to take things calmly, child."
For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All "spirit and fire and
dew," as she was, the pleasures and pains of life came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this
and was vaguely troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would probably
bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently understanding that the equally great capacity
for delight might more than compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill Anne
into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien to her as to a dancing sunbeam in
one of the brook shallows. She did not make much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to
herself. The downfall of some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into "deeps of affliction." The
fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had almost begun to despair of
ever fashioning this waif of the world into her model little girl of demure manners and prim
deportment. Neither would she have believed that she really liked Anne much better as she was.
Anne went to bed that night speechless with misery because Matthew had said the wind was
round northeast and he feared it would be a rainy day tomorrow. The rustle of the poplar leaves
about the house worried her, it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the full, faraway roar of the
gulf, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving its strange, sonorous, haunting rhythm,
now seemed like a prophecy of storm and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a
fine day. Anne thought that the morning would never come.
But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you are invited to take tea at the
manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew's predictions, was fine and Anne's spirits soared to their
highest. "Oh, Marilla, there is something in me today that makes me just love everybody I see," she
exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes. "You don't know how good I feel! Wouldn't it be
nice if it could last? I believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea every day. But
oh, Marilla, it's a solemn occasion too. I feel so anxious. What if I shouldn't behave properly? You
know I never had tea at a manse before, and I'm not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette,
although I've been studying the rules given in the Etiquette Department of the Family Herald ever
since I came here. I'm so afraid I'll do something silly or forget to do something I should do. Would it
be good manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to VERY much?"
"The trouble with you, Anne, is that you're thinking too much about yourself. You should just think
of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest and most agreeable to her," said Marilla, hitting for once in
her life on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this.
"You are right, Marilla. I'll try not to think about myself at all."
Anne evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of "etiquette," for she came home
through the twilight, under a great, high-sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud,
in a beatified state of mind and told Marilla all about it happily, sitting on the big red-sandstone
slab at the kitchen door with her tired curly head in Marilla's gingham lap.
A cool wind was blowing down over the long harvest fields from the rims of firry western hills and
whistling through the poplars. One clear star hung over the orchard and the fireflies were flitting
over in Lover's Lane, in and out among the ferns and rustling boughs. Anne watched them as she
talked and somehow felt that wind and stars and fireflies were all tangled up together into
something unutterably sweet and enchanting.
"Oh, Marilla, I've had a most FASCINATING time. I feel that I have not lived in vain and I shall
always feel like that even if I should never be invited to tea at a manse again. When I got there Mrs.
Allan met me at the door. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale-pink organdy, with
dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like a seraph. I really think I'd like to be a
minister's wife when I grow up, Marilla. A minister mightn't mind my red hair because he wouldn't
be thinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have to be naturally good and I'll
never be that, so I suppose there's no use in thinking about it. Some people are naturally good, you
know, and others are not. I'm one of the others. Mrs. Lynde says I'm full of original sin. No matter
how hard I try to be good I can never make such a success of it as those who are naturally good.
It's a good deal like geometry, I expect. But don't you think the trying so hard ought to count for
something? Mrs. Allan is one of the naturally good people. I love her passionately. You know there
are some people, like Matthew and Mrs. Allan that you can love right off without any trouble. And
there are others, like Mrs. Lynde, that you have to try very hard to love. You know you OUGHT to
love them because they know so much and are such active workers in the church, but you have to
keep reminding yourself of it all the time or else you forget. There was another little girl at the
manse to tea, from the White Sands Sunday school. Her name was Laurette Bradley, and she was
a very nice little girl. Not exactly a kindred spirit, you know, but still very nice. We had an elegant
tea, and I think I kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well. After tea Mrs. Allan played and sang and
she got Lauretta and me to sing too. Mrs. Allan says I have a good voice and she says I must sing
in the Sunday-school choir after this. You can't think how I was thrilled at the mere thought. I've
longed so to sing in the Sunday-school choir, as Diana does, but I feared it was an honor I could
never aspire to. Lauretta had to go home early because there is a big concert in the White Sands
Hotel tonight and her sister is to recite at it. Lauretta says that the Americans at the hotel give a
concert every fortnight in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and they ask lots of the White Sands
people to recite. Lauretta said she expected to be asked herself someday. I just gazed at her in
awe. After she had gone Mrs. Allan and I had a heart-to-heart talk. I told her everything—about Mrs.
Thomas and the twins and Katie Maurice and Violetta and coming to Green Gables and my
troubles over geometry. And would you believe it, Marilla? Mrs. Allan told me she was a dunce at
geometry too. You don't know how that encouraged me. Mrs. Lynde came to the manse just before
I left, and what do you think, Marilla? The trustees have hired a new teacher and it's a lady. Her
name is Miss Muriel Stacy. Isn't that a romantic name? Mrs. Lynde says they've never had a female
teacher in Avonlea before and she thinks it is a dangerous innovation. But I think it will be splendid
to have a lady teacher, and I really don't see how I'm going to live through the two weeks before
school begins. I'm so impatient to see her."
CHAPTER XXIII. Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor
Anne had to live through more than two weeks, as it happened. Almost a month having elapsed
since the liniment cake episode, it was high time for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort, little
mistakes, such as absentmindedly emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn balls in the
pantry instead of into the pigs' bucket, and walking clean over the edge of the log bridge into the
brook while wrapped in imaginative reverie, not really being worth counting.
A week after the tea at the manse Diana Barry gave a party.
"Small and select," Anne assured Marilla. "Just the girls in our class."
They had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea, when they found
themselves in the Barry garden, a little tired of all their games and ripe for any enticing form of
mischief which might present itself. This presently took the form of "daring."
Daring was the fashionable amusement among the Avonlea small fry just then. It had begun
among the boys, but soon spread to the girls, and all the silly things that were done in Avonlea that
summer because the doers thereof were "dared" to do them would fill a book by themselves.
First of all Carrie Sloane dared Ruby Gillis to climb to a certain point in the huge old willow tree
before the front door; which Ruby Gillis, albeit in mortal dread of the fat green caterpillars with
which said tree was infested and with the fear of her mother before her eyes if she should tear her
new muslin dress, nimbly did, to the discomfiture of the aforesaid Carrie Sloane. Then Josie Pye
dared Jane Andrews to hop on her left leg around the garden without stopping once or putting her
right foot to the ground; which Jane Andrews gamely tried to do, but gave out at the third corner
and had to confess herself defeated.
Josie's triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste permitted, Anne Shirley dared
her to walk along the top of the board fence which bounded the garden to the east. Now, to "walk"
board fences requires more skill and steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who
has never tried it. But Josie Pye, if deficient in some qualities that make for popularity, had at least
a natural and inborn gift, duly cultivated, for walking board fences. Josie walked the Barry fence
with an airy unconcern which seemed to imply that a little thing like that wasn't worth a "dare."
Reluctant admiration greeted her exploit, for most of the other girls could appreciate it, having
suffered many things themselves in their efforts to walk fences. Josie descended from her perch,
flushed with victory, and darted a defiant glance at Anne.
Anne tossed her red braids.
"I don't think it's such a very wonderful thing to walk a little, low, board fence," she said. "I knew a
girl in Marysville who could walk the ridgepole of a roof."
"I don't believe it," said Josie flatly. "I don't believe anybody could walk a ridgepole. YOU
couldn't, anyhow."
"Couldn't I?" cried Anne rashly.
"Then I dare you to do it," said Josie defiantly. "I dare you to climb up there and walk the
ridgepole of Mr. Barry's kitchen roof."
Anne turned pale, but there was clearly only one thing to be done. She walked toward the house,
where a ladder was leaning against the kitchen roof. All the fifth-class girls said, "Oh!" partly in
excitement, partly in dismay.
"Don't you do it, Anne," entreated Diana. "You'll fall off and be killed. Never mind Josie Pye. It
isn't fair to dare anybody to do anything so dangerous."
"I must do it. My honor is at stake," said Anne solemnly. "I shall walk that ridgepole, Diana, or
perish in the attempt. If I am killed you are to have my pearl bead ring."
Anne climbed the ladder amid breathless silence, gained the ridgepole, balanced herself
uprightly on that precarious footing, and started to walk along it, dizzily conscious that she was
uncomfortably high up in the world and that walking ridgepoles was not a thing in which your
imagination helped you out much. Nevertheless, she managed to take several steps before the
catastrophe came. Then she swayed, lost her balance, stumbled, staggered, and fell, sliding down
over the sun-baked roof and crashing off it through the tangle of Virginia creeper beneath—all
before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous, terrified shriek.
If Anne had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended Diana would probably
have fallen heir to the pearl bead ring then and there. Fortunately she fell on the other side, where
the roof extended down over the porch so nearly to the ground that a fall therefrom was a much
less serious thing. Nevertheless, when Diana and the other girls had rushed frantically around the
house—except Ruby Gillis, who remained as if rooted to the ground and went into hysterics—they
found Anne lying all white and limp among the wreck and ruin of the Virginia creeper.
"Anne, are you killed?" shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside her friend. "Oh,
Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed."
To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye, who, in spite of lack of
imagination, had been seized with horrible visions of a future branded as the girl who was the
cause of Anne Shirley's early and tragic death, Anne sat dizzily up and answered uncertainly:
"No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious."
"Where?" sobbed Carrie Sloane. "Oh, where, Anne?" Before Anne could answer Mrs. Barry
appeared on the scene. At sight of her Anne tried to scramble to her feet, but sank back again with
a sharp little cry of pain.
"What's the matter? Where have you hurt yourself?" demanded Mrs. Barry.
"My ankle," gasped Anne. "Oh, Diana, please find your father and ask him to take me home. I
know I can never walk there. And I'm sure I couldn't hop so far on one foot when Jane couldn't even
hop around the garden."
Marilla was out in the orchard picking a panful of summer apples when she saw Mr. Barry
coming over the log bridge and up the slope, with Mrs. Barry beside him and a whole procession
of little girls trailing after him. In his arms he carried Anne, whose head lay limply against his
shoulder.
At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that pierced her very heart
she realized what Anne had come to mean to her. She would have admitted that she liked Anne
—nay, that she was very fond of Anne. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that
Anne was dearer to her than anything else on earth.
"Mr. Barry, what has happened to her?" she gasped, more white and shaken than the self-
contained, sensible Marilla had been for many years.
Anne herself answered, lifting her head.
"Don't be very frightened, Marilla. I was walking the ridgepole and I fell off. I expect I have
sprained my ankle. But, Marilla, I might have broken my neck. Let us look on the bright side of
things."
"I might have known you'd go and do something of the sort when I let you go to that party," said
Marilla, sharp and shrewish in her very relief. "Bring her in here, Mr. Barry, and lay her on the sofa.
Mercy me, the child has gone and fainted!"
It was quite true. Overcome by the pain of her injury, Anne had one more of her wishes granted
to her. She had fainted dead away.
Matthew, hastily summoned from the harvest field, was straightway dispatched for the doctor,
who in due time came, to discover that the injury was more serious than they had supposed.
Anne's ankle was broken.
That night, when Marilla went up to the east gable, where a white-faced girl was lying, a plaintive
voice greeted her from the bed.
"Aren't you very sorry for me, Marilla?"
"It was your own fault," said Marilla, twitching down the blind and lighting a lamp.
"And that is just why you should be sorry for me," said Anne, "because the thought that it is all my
own fault is what makes it so hard. If I could blame it on anybody I would feel so much better. But
what would you have done, Marilla, if you had been dared to walk a ridgepole?"
"I'd have stayed on good firm ground and let them dare away. Such absurdity!" said Marilla.
Anne sighed.
"But you have such strength of mind, Marilla. I haven't. I just felt that I couldn't bear Josie Pye's
scorn. She would have crowed over me all my life. And I think I have been punished so much that
you needn't be very cross with me, Marilla. It's not a bit nice to faint, after all. And the doctor hurt me
dreadfully when he was setting my ankle. I won't be able to go around for six or seven weeks and I'll
miss the new lady teacher. She won't be new any more by the time I'm able to go to school. And Gil
—everybody will get ahead of me in class. Oh, I am an afflicted mortal. But I'll try to bear it all
bravely if only you won't be cross with me, Marilla."
"There, there, I'm not cross," said Marilla. "You're an unlucky child, there's no doubt about that;
but as you say, you'll have the suffering of it. Here now, try and eat some supper."
"Isn't it fortunate I've got such an imagination?" said Anne. "It will help me through splendidly, I
expect. What do people who haven't any imagination do when they break their bones, do you
suppose, Marilla?"
Anne had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft during the tedious seven
weeks that followed. But she was not solely dependent on it. She had many visitors and not a day
passed without one or more of the schoolgirls dropping in to bring her flowers and books and tell
her all the happenings in the juvenile world of Avonlea.
"Everybody has been so good and kind, Marilla," sighed Anne happily, on the day when she
could first limp across the floor. "It isn't very pleasant to be laid up; but there is a bright side to it,
Marilla. You find out how many friends you have. Why, even Superintendent Bell came to see me,
and he's really a very fine man. Not a kindred spirit, of course; but still I like him and I'm awfully
sorry I ever criticized his prayers. I believe now he really does mean them, only he has got into the
habit of saying them as if he didn't. He could get over that if he'd take a little trouble. I gave him a
good broad hint. I told him how hard I tried to make my own little private prayers interesting. He told
me all about the time he broke his ankle when he was a boy. It does seem so strange to think of
Superintendent Bell ever being a boy. Even my imagination has its limits, for I can't imagine THAT.
When I try to imagine him as a boy I see him with gray whiskers and spectacles, just as he looks in
Sunday school, only small. Now, it's so easy to imagine Mrs. Allan as a little girl. Mrs. Allan has
been to see me fourteen times. Isn't that something to be proud of, Marilla? When a minister's wife
has so many claims on her time! She is such a cheerful person to have visit you, too. She never
tells you it's your own fault and she hopes you'll be a better girl on account of it. Mrs. Lynde always
told me that when she came to see me; and she said it in a kind of way that made me feel she
might hope I'd be a better girl but didn't really believe I would. Even Josie Pye came to see me. I
received her as politely as I could, because I think she was sorry she dared me to walk a
ridgepole. If I had been killed she would had to carry a dark burden of remorse all her life. Diana
has been a faithful friend. She's been over every day to cheer my lonely pillow. But oh, I shall be so
glad when I can go to school for I've heard such exciting things about the new teacher. The girls all
think she is perfectly sweet. Diana says she has the loveliest fair curly hair and such fascinating
eyes. She dresses beautifully, and her sleeve puffs are bigger than anybody else's in Avonlea.
Every other Friday afternoon she has recitations and everybody has to say a piece or take part in a
dialogue. Oh, it's just glorious to think of it. Josie Pye says she hates it but that is just because
Josie has so little imagination. Diana and Ruby Gillis and Jane Andrews are preparing a dialogue,
called 'A Morning Visit,' for next Friday. And the Friday afternoons they don't have recitations Miss
Stacy takes them all to the woods for a 'field' day and they study ferns and flowers and birds. And
they have physical culture exercises every morning and evening. Mrs. Lynde says she never heard
of such goings on and it all comes of having a lady teacher. But I think it must be splendid and I
believe I shall find that Miss Stacy is a kindred spirit."
"There's one thing plain to be seen, Anne," said Marilla, "and that is that your fall off the Barry
roof hasn't injured your tongue at all."
CHAPTER XXIV. Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a
Concert
It was October again when Anne was ready to go back to school—a glorious October, all red
and gold, with mellow mornings when the valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of
autumn had poured them in for the sun to drain—amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and smoke-blue. The
dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps of
rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed woods to run crisply through. The Birch Path was a
canopy of yellow and the ferns were sear and brown all along it. There was a tang in the very air
that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping, unlike snails, swiftly and willingly to school; and it
WAS jolly to be back again at the little brown desk beside Diana, with Ruby Gillis nodding across
the aisle and Carrie Sloane sending up notes and Julia Bell passing a "chew" of gum down from
the back seat. Anne drew a long breath of happiness as she sharpened her pencil and arranged
her picture cards in her desk. Life was certainly very interesting.
In the new teacher she found another true and helpful friend. Miss Stacy was a bright,
sympathetic young woman with the happy gift of winning and holding the affections of her pupils
and bringing out the best that was in them mentally and morally. Anne expanded like a flower under
this wholesome influence and carried home to the admiring Matthew and the critical Marilla
glowing accounts of schoolwork and aims.
"I love Miss Stacy with my whole heart, Marilla. She is so ladylike and she has such a sweet
voice. When she pronounces my name I feel INSTINCTIVELY that she's spelling it with an E. We
had recitations this afternoon. I just wish you could have been there to hear me recite 'Mary, Queen
of Scots.' I just put my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis told me coming home that the way I said the
line, 'Now for my father's arm,' she said, 'my woman's heart farewell,' just made her blood run cold."
"Well now, you might recite it for me some of these days, out in the barn," suggested Matthew.
"Of course I will," said Anne meditatively, "but I won't be able to do it so well, I know. It won't be so
exciting as it is when you have a whole schoolful before you hanging breathlessly on your words. I
know I won't be able to make your blood run cold."
"Mrs. Lynde says it made HER blood run cold to see the boys climbing to the very tops of those
big trees on Bell's hill after crows' nests last Friday," said Marilla. "I wonder at Miss Stacy for
encouraging it."
"But we wanted a crow's nest for nature study," explained Anne. "That was on our field afternoon.
Field afternoons are splendid, Marilla. And Miss Stacy explains everything so beautifully. We have
to write compositions on our field afternoons and I write the best ones."
"It's very vain of you to say so then. You'd better let your teacher say it."
"But she DID say it, Marilla. And indeed I'm not vain about it. How can I be, when I'm such a
dunce at geometry? Although I'm really beginning to see through it a little, too. Miss Stacy makes it
so clear. Still, I'll never be good at it and I assure you it is a humbling reflection. But I love writing
compositions. Mostly Miss Stacy lets us choose our own subjects; but next week we are to write a
composition on some remarkable person. It's hard to choose among so many remarkable people
who have lived. Mustn't it be splendid to be remarkable and have compositions written about you
after you're dead? Oh, I would dearly love to be remarkable. I think when I grow up I'll be a trained
nurse and go with the Red Crosses to the field of battle as a messenger of mercy. That is, if I don't
go out as a foreign missionary. That would be very romantic, but one would have to be very good to
be a missionary, and that would be a stumbling block. We have physical culture exercises every
day, too. They make you graceful and promote digestion."
"Promote fiddlesticks!" said Marilla, who honestly thought it was all nonsense.
But all the field afternoons and recitation Fridays and physical culture contortions paled before a
project which Miss Stacy brought forward in November. This was that the scholars of Avonlea
school should get up a concert and hold it in the hall on Christmas Night, for the laudable purpose
of helping to pay for a schoolhouse flag. The pupils one and all taking graciously to this plan, the
preparations for a program were begun at once. And of all the excited performers-elect none was
so excited as Anne Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart and soul, hampered as
she was by Marilla's disapproval. Marilla thought it all rank foolishness.
"It's just filling your heads up with nonsense and taking time that ought to be put on your lessons,"
she grumbled. "I don't approve of children's getting up concerts and racing about to practices. It
makes them vain and forward and fond of gadding."
"But think of the worthy object," pleaded Anne. "A flag will cultivate a spirit of patriotism, Marilla."
"Fudge! There's precious little patriotism in the thoughts of any of you. All you want is a good
time."
"Well, when you can combine patriotism and fun, isn't it all right? Of course it's real nice to be
getting up a concert. We're going to have six choruses and Diana is to sing a solo. I'm in two
dialogues—'The Society for the Suppression of Gossip' and 'The Fairy Queen.' The boys are
going to have a dialogue too. And I'm to have two recitations, Marilla. I just tremble when I think of
it, but it's a nice thrilly kind of tremble. And we're to have a tableau at the last—'Faith, Hope and
Charity.' Diana and Ruby and I are to be in it, all draped in white with flowing hair. I'm to be Hope,
with my hands clasped—so—and my eyes uplifted. I'm going to practice my recitations in the
garret. Don't be alarmed if you hear me groaning. I have to groan heartrendingly in one of them,
and it's really hard to get up a good artistic groan, Marilla. Josie Pye is sulky because she didn't
get the part she wanted in the dialogue. She wanted to be the fairy queen. That would have been
ridiculous, for who ever heard of a fairy queen as fat as Josie? Fairy queens must be slender. Jane
Andrews is to be the queen and I am to be one of her maids of honor. Josie says she thinks a red-
haired fairy is just as ridiculous as a fat one, but I do not let myself mind what Josie says. I'm to
have a wreath of white roses on my hair and Ruby Gillis is going to lend me her slippers because I
haven't any of my own. It's necessary for fairies to have slippers, you know. You couldn't imagine a
fairy wearing boots, could you? Especially with copper toes? We are going to decorate the hall
with creeping spruce and fir mottoes with pink tissue-paper roses in them. And we are all to march
in two by two after the audience is seated, while Emma White plays a march on the organ. Oh,
Marilla, I know you are not so enthusiastic about it as I am, but don't you hope your little Anne will
distinguish herself?"
"All I hope is that you'll behave yourself. I'll be heartily glad when all this fuss is over and you'll be
able to settle down. You are simply good for nothing just now with your head stuffed full of
dialogues and groans and tableaus. As for your tongue, it's a marvel it's not clean worn out."
Anne sighed and betook herself to the back yard, over which a young new moon was shining
through the leafless poplar boughs from an apple-green western sky, and where Matthew was
splitting wood. Anne perched herself on a block and talked the concert over with him, sure of an
appreciative and sympathetic listener in this instance at least.
"Well now, I reckon it's going to be a pretty good concert. And I expect you'll do your part fine," he
said, smiling down into her eager, vivacious little face. Anne smiled back at him. Those two were
the best of friends and Matthew thanked his stars many a time and oft that he had nothing to do
with bringing her up. That was Marilla's exclusive duty; if it had been his he would have been
worried over frequent conflicts between inclination and said duty. As it was, he was free to, "spoil
Anne"—Marilla's phrasing—as much as he liked. But it was not such a bad arrangement after all; a
little "appreciation" sometimes does quite as much good as all the conscientious "bringing up" in
the world.
CHAPTER XXV. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves
Matthew was having a bad ten minutes of it. He had come into the kitchen, in the twilight of a
cold, gray December evening, and had sat down in the woodbox corner to take off his heavy
boots, unconscious of the fact that Anne and a bevy of her schoolmates were having a practice of
"The Fairy Queen" in the sitting room. Presently they came trooping through the hall and out into
the kitchen, laughing and chattering gaily. They did not see Matthew, who shrank bashfully back
into the shadows beyond the woodbox with a boot in one hand and a bootjack in the other, and he
watched them shyly for the aforesaid ten minutes as they put on caps and jackets and talked about
the dialogue and the concert. Anne stood among them, bright eyed and animated as they; but
Matthew suddenly became conscious that there was something about her different from her mates.
And what worried Matthew was that the difference impressed him as being something that should
not exist. Anne had a brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and more delicate features than the
other; even shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to take note of these things; but the difference
that disturbed him did not consist in any of these respects. Then in what did it consist?
Matthew was haunted by this question long after the girls had gone, arm in arm, down the long,
hard-frozen lane and Anne had betaken herself to her books. He could not refer it to Marilla, who,
he felt, would be quite sure to sniff scornfully and remark that the only difference she saw between
Anne and the other girls was that they sometimes kept their tongues quiet while Anne never did.
This, Matthew felt, would be no great help.
He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out, much to Marilla's disgust. After
two hours of smoking and hard reflection Matthew arrived at a solution of his problem. Anne was
not dressed like the other girls!
The more Matthew thought about the matter the more he was convinced that Anne never had
been dressed like the other girls—never since she had come to Green Gables. Marilla kept her
clothed in plain, dark dresses, all made after the same unvarying pattern. If Matthew knew there
was such a thing as fashion in dress it was as much as he did; but he was quite sure that Anne's
sleeves did not look at all like the sleeves the other girls wore. He recalled the cluster of little girls
he had seen around her that evening—all gay in waists of red and blue and pink and white—and
he wondered why Marilla always kept her so plainly and soberly gowned.
Of course, it must be all right. Marilla knew best and Marilla was bringing her up. Probably some
wise, inscrutable motive was to be served thereby. But surely it would do no harm to let the child
have one pretty dress—something like Diana Barry always wore. Matthew decided that he would
give her one; that surely could not be objected to as an unwarranted putting in of his oar. Christmas
was only a fortnight off. A nice new dress would be the very thing for a present. Matthew, with a sigh
of satisfaction, put away his pipe and went to bed, while Marilla opened all the doors and aired the
house.
The very next evening Matthew betook himself to Carmody to buy the dress, determined to get
the worst over and have done with it. It would be, he felt assured, no trifling ordeal. There were
some things Matthew could buy and prove himself no mean bargainer; but he knew he would be at
the mercy of shopkeepers when it came to buying a girl's dress.
After much cogitation Matthew resolved to go to Samuel Lawson's store instead of William
Blair's. To be sure, the Cuthberts always had gone to William Blair's; it was almost as much a
matter of conscience with them as to attend the Presbyterian church and vote Conservative. But
William Blair's two daughters frequently waited on customers there and Matthew held them in
absolute dread. He could contrive to deal with them when he knew exactly what he wanted and
could point it out; but in such a matter as this, requiring explanation and consultation, Matthew felt
that he must be sure of a man behind the counter. So he would go to Lawson's, where Samuel or
his son would wait on him.
Alas! Matthew did not know that Samuel, in the recent expansion of his business, had set up a
lady clerk also; she was a niece of his wife's and a very dashing young person indeed, with a
huge, drooping pompadour, big, rolling brown eyes, and a most extensive and bewildering smile.
She was dressed with exceeding smartness and wore several bangle bracelets that glittered and
rattled and tinkled with every movement of her hands. Matthew was covered with confusion at
finding her there at all; and those bangles completely wrecked his wits at one fell swoop.
"What can I do for you this evening, Mr. Cuthbert?" Miss Lucilla Harris inquired, briskly and
ingratiatingly, tapping the counter with both hands.
"Have you any—any—any—well now, say any garden rakes?" stammered Matthew.
Miss Harris looked somewhat surprised, as well she might, to hear a man inquiring for garden
rakes in the middle of December.
"I believe we have one or two left over," she said, "but they're upstairs in the lumber room. I'll go
and see." During her absence Matthew collected his scattered senses for another effort.
When Miss Harris returned with the rake and cheerfully inquired: "Anything else tonight, Mr.
Cuthbert?" Matthew took his courage in both hands and replied: "Well now, since you suggest it, I
might as well—take—that is—look at—buy some—some hayseed."
Miss Harris had heard Matthew Cuthbert called odd. She now concluded that he was entirely
crazy.
"We only keep hayseed in the spring," she explained loftily. "We've none on hand just now."
"Oh, certainly—certainly—just as you say," stammered unhappy Matthew, seizing the rake and
making for the door. At the threshold he recollected that he had not paid for it and he turned
miserably back. While Miss Harris was counting out his change he rallied his powers for a final
desperate attempt.
"Well now—if it isn't too much trouble—I might as well—that is—I'd like to look at—at—some
sugar."
"White or brown?" queried Miss Harris patiently.
"Oh—well now—brown," said Matthew feebly.
"There's a barrel of it over there," said Miss Harris, shaking her bangles at it. "It's the only kind
we have."
"I'll—I'll take twenty pounds of it," said Matthew, with beads of perspiration standing on his
forehead.
Matthew had driven halfway home before he was his own man again. It had been a gruesome
experience, but it served him right, he thought, for committing the heresy of going to a strange
store. When he reached home he hid the rake in the tool house, but the sugar he carried in to
Marilla.
"Brown sugar!" exclaimed Marilla. "Whatever possessed you to get so much? You know I never
use it except for the hired man's porridge or black fruit cake. Jerry's gone and I've made my cake
long ago. It's not good sugar, either—it's coarse and dark—William Blair doesn't usually keep
sugar like that."
"I—I thought it might come in handy sometime," said Matthew, making good his escape.
When Matthew came to think the matter over he decided that a woman was required to cope
with the situation. Marilla was out of the question. Matthew felt sure she would throw cold water on
his project at once. Remained only Mrs. Lynde; for of no other woman in Avonlea would Matthew
have dared to ask advice. To Mrs. Lynde he went accordingly, and that good lady promptly took the
matter out of the harassed man's hands.
"Pick out a dress for you to give Anne? To be sure I will. I'm going to Carmody tomorrow and I'll
attend to it. Have you something particular in mind? No? Well, I'll just go by my own judgment then. I
believe a nice rich brown would just suit Anne, and William Blair has some new gloria in that's real
pretty. Perhaps you'd like me to make it up for her, too, seeing that if Marilla was to make it Anne
would probably get wind of it before the time and spoil the surprise? Well, I'll do it. No, it isn't a mite
of trouble. I like sewing. I'll make it to fit my niece, Jenny Gillis, for she and Anne are as like as two
peas as far as figure goes."
"Well now, I'm much obliged," said Matthew, "and—and—I dunno—but I'd like—I think they make
the sleeves different nowadays to what they used to be. If it wouldn't be asking too much I—I'd like
them made in the new way."
"Puffs? Of course. You needn't worry a speck more about it, Matthew. I'll make it up in the very
latest fashion," said Mrs. Lynde. To herself she added when Matthew had gone:
"It'll be a real satisfaction to see that poor child wearing something decent for once. The way
Marilla dresses her is positively ridiculous, that's what, and I've ached to tell her so plainly a dozen
times. I've held my tongue though, for I can see Marilla doesn't want advice and she thinks she
knows more about bringing children up than I do for all she's an old maid. But that's always the way.
Folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit
every child. But them as never have think it's all as plain and easy as Rule of Three—just set your
three terms down so fashion, and the sum'll work out correct. But flesh and blood don't come under
the head of arithmetic and that's where Marilla Cuthbert makes her mistake. I suppose she's trying
to cultivate a spirit of humility in Anne by dressing her as she does; but it's more likely to cultivate
envy and discontent. I'm sure the child must feel the difference between her clothes and the other
girls'. But to think of Matthew taking notice of it! That man is waking up after being asleep for over
sixty years."
Marilla knew all the following fortnight that Matthew had something on his mind, but what it was
she could not guess, until Christmas Eve, when Mrs. Lynde brought up the new dress. Marilla
behaved pretty well on the whole, although it is very likely she distrusted Mrs. Lynde's diplomatic
explanation that she had made the dress because Matthew was afraid Anne would find out about it
too soon if Marilla made it.
"So this is what Matthew has been looking so mysterious over and grinning about to himself for
two weeks, is it?" she said a little stiffly but tolerantly. "I knew he was up to some foolishness. Well, I
must say I don't think Anne needed any more dresses. I made her three good, warm, serviceable
ones this fall, and anything more is sheer extravagance. There's enough material in those sleeves
alone to make a waist, I declare there is. You'll just pamper Anne's vanity, Matthew, and she's as
vain as a peacock now. Well, I hope she'll be satisfied at last, for I know she's been hankering after
those silly sleeves ever since they came in, although she never said a word after the first. The puffs
have been getting bigger and more ridiculous right along; they're as big as balloons now. Next year
anybody who wears them will have to go through a door sideways."
Christmas morning broke on a beautiful white world. It had been a very mild December and
people had looked forward to a green Christmas; but just enough snow fell softly in the night to
transfigure Avonlea. Anne peeped out from her frosted gable window with delighted eyes. The firs
in the Haunted Wood were all feathery and wonderful; the birches and wild cherry trees were
outlined in pearl; the plowed fields were stretches of snowy dimples; and there was a crisp tang in
the air that was glorious. Anne ran downstairs singing until her voice reechoed through Green
Gables.
"Merry Christmas, Marilla! Merry Christmas, Matthew! Isn't it a lovely Christmas? I'm so glad it's
white. Any other kind of Christmas doesn't seem real, does it? I don't like green Christmases.
They're not green—they're just nasty faded browns and grays. What makes people call them
green? Why—why—Matthew, is that for me? Oh, Matthew!"
Matthew had sheepishly unfolded the dress from its paper swathings and held it out with a
deprecatory glance at Marilla, who feigned to be contemptuously filling the teapot, but nevertheless
watched the scene out of the corner of her eye with a rather interested air.
Anne took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty it was—a lovely soft
brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately
pintucked in the most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. But the sleeves
—they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by
rows of shirring and bows of brown-silk ribbon.
"That's a Christmas present for you, Anne," said Matthew shyly. "Why—why—Anne, don't you
like it? Well now—well now."
For Anne's eyes had suddenly filled with tears.
"Like it! Oh, Matthew!" Anne laid the dress over a chair and clasped her hands. "Matthew, it's
perfectly exquisite. Oh, I can never thank you enough. Look at those sleeves! Oh, it seems to me
this must be a happy dream."
"Well, well, let us have breakfast," interrupted Marilla. "I must say, Anne, I don't think you needed
the dress; but since Matthew has got it for you, see that you take good care of it. There's a hair
ribbon Mrs. Lynde left for you. It's brown, to match the dress. Come now, sit in."
"I don't see how I'm going to eat breakfast," said Anne rapturously. "Breakfast seems so
commonplace at such an exciting moment. I'd rather feast my eyes on that dress. I'm so glad that
puffed sleeves are still fashionable. It did seem to me that I'd never get over it if they went out
before I had a dress with them. I'd never have felt quite satisfied, you see. It was lovely of Mrs.
Lynde to give me the ribbon too. I feel that I ought to be a very good girl indeed. It's at times like this
I'm sorry I'm not a model little girl; and I always resolve that I will be in future. But somehow it's hard
to carry out your resolutions when irresistible temptations come. Still, I really will make an extra
effort after this."
When the commonplace breakfast was over Diana appeared, crossing the white log bridge in
the hollow, a gay little figure in her crimson ulster. Anne flew down the slope to meet her.
"Merry Christmas, Diana! And oh, it's a wonderful Christmas. I've something splendid to show
you. Matthew has given me the loveliest dress, with SUCH sleeves. I couldn't even imagine any
nicer."
"I've got something more for you," said Diana breathlessly. "Here—this box. Aunt Josephine sent
us out a big box with ever so many things in it—and this is for you. I'd have brought it over last night,
but it didn't come until after dark, and I never feel very comfortable coming through the Haunted
Wood in the dark now."
Anne opened the box and peeped in. First a card with "For the Anne-girl and Merry Christmas,"
written on it; and then, a pair of the daintiest little kid slippers, with beaded toes and satin bows
and glistening buckles.
"Oh," said Anne, "Diana, this is too much. I must be dreaming."
"I call it providential," said Diana. "You won't have to borrow Ruby's slippers now, and that's a
blessing, for they're two sizes too big for you, and it would be awful to hear a fairy shuffling. Josie
Pye would be delighted. Mind you, Rob Wright went home with Gertie Pye from the practice night
before last. Did you ever hear anything equal to that?"
All the Avonlea scholars were in a fever of excitement that day, for the hall had to be decorated
and a last grand rehearsal held.
The concert came off in the evening and was a pronounced success. The little hall was crowded;
all the performers did excellently well, but Anne was the bright particular star of the occasion, as
even envy, in the shape of Josie Pye, dared not deny.
"Oh, hasn't it been a brilliant evening?" sighed Anne, when it was all over and she and Diana
were walking home together under a dark, starry sky.
"Everything went off very well," said Diana practically. "I guess we must have made as much as
ten dollars. Mind you, Mr. Allan is going to send an account of it to the Charlottetown papers."
"Oh, Diana, will we really see our names in print? It makes me thrill to think of it. Your solo was
perfectly elegant, Diana. I felt prouder than you did when it was encored. I just said to myself, 'It is
my dear bosom friend who is so honored.'"
"Well, your recitations just brought down the house, Anne. That sad one was simply splendid."
"Oh, I was so nervous, Diana. When Mr. Allan called out my name I really cannot tell how I ever
got up on that platform. I felt as if a million eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one
dreadful moment I was sure I couldn't begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely puffed sleeves and
took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, Diana. So I started in, and my voice
seemed to be coming from ever so far away. I just felt like a parrot. It's providential that I practiced
those recitations so often up in the garret, or I'd never have been able to get through. Did I groan all
right?"
"Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely," assured Diana.
"I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was splendid to think I had touched
somebody's heart. It's so romantic to take part in a concert, isn't it? Oh, it's been a very memorable
occasion indeed."
"Wasn't the boys' dialogue fine?" said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe was just splendid. Anne, I do think
it's awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy
dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast pocket.
There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure you ought to be pleased at that."
"It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I simply never waste a thought on
him, Diana."
That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first time in twenty years,
sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed.
"Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew proudly.
"Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice too. I've
been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all.
Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so."
"Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so 'fore she went upstairs," said Matthew. "We
must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more
than Avonlea school by and by."
"There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in March. Though tonight
it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it
makes Anne look so tall. She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to
send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet."
"Well now, it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on," said Matthew. "Things like that are all
the better for lots of thinking over."
CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed
Junior Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again. To Anne in particular
things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been
sipping for weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before
the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really think she could.
"I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same again as it was in those olden
days," she said mournfully, as if referring to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a
while I'll get used to it, but I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life. I suppose that is why
Marilla disapproves of them. Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be
sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible person, because they are so
unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel
just now that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because I'm tired. I simply
couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just lay awake and imagined the concert over and over
again. That's one splendid thing about such affairs—it's so lovely to look back to them."
Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove and took up its old
interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over
a point of precedence in their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising
friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did not "speak" for three months,
because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright that Julia Bell's bow when she got up to recite made
her think of a chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes would have any
dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had declared that the Sloanes had too much to do in the
program, and the Sloanes had retorted that the Bells were not capable of doing the little they had
to do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, because Moody
Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley put on airs about her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was
"licked"; consequently Moody Spurgeon's sister, Ella May, would not "speak" to Anne Shirley all the
rest of the winter. With the exception of these trifling frictions, work in Miss Stacy's little kingdom
went on with regularity and smoothness.
The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so little snow that Anne and
Diana could go to school nearly every day by way of the Birch Path. On Anne's birthday they were
tripping lightly down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss Stacy had told
them that they must soon write a composition on "A Winter's Walk in the Woods," and it behooved
them to be observant.
"Just think, Diana, I'm thirteen years old today," remarked Anne in an awed voice. "I can scarcely
realize that I'm in my teens. When I woke this morning it seemed to me that everything must be
different. You've been thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn't seem such a novelty to you as it
does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting. In two more years I'll be really grown up.
It's a great comfort to think that I'll be able to use big words then without being laughed at."
"Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she's fifteen," said Diana.
"Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus," said Anne disdainfully. "She's actually delighted when
anyone writes her name up in a take-notice for all she pretends to be so mad. But I'm afraid that is
an uncharitable speech. Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable speeches; but they do
slip out so often before you think, don't they? I simply can't talk about Josie Pye without making an
uncharitable speech, so I never mention her at all. You may have noticed that. I'm trying to be as
much like Mrs. Allan as I possibly can, for I think she's perfect. Mr. Allan thinks so too. Mrs. Lynde
says he just worships the ground she treads on and she doesn't really think it right for a minister to
set his affections so much on a mortal being. But then, Diana, even ministers are human and have
their besetting sins just like everybody else. I had such an interesting talk with Mrs. Allan about
besetting sins last Sunday afternoon. There are just a few things it's proper to talk about on
Sundays and that is one of them. My besetting sin is imagining too much and forgetting my duties.
I'm striving very hard to overcome it and now that I'm really thirteen perhaps I'll get on better."
"In four more years we'll be able to put our hair up," said Diana. "Alice Bell is only sixteen and
she is wearing hers up, but I think that's ridiculous. I shall wait until I'm seventeen."
"If I had Alice Bell's crooked nose," said Anne decidedly, "I wouldn't—but there! I won't say what I
was going to because it was extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with my own
nose and that's vanity. I'm afraid I think too much about my nose ever since I heard that compliment
about it long ago. It really is a great comfort to me. Oh, Diana, look, there's a rabbit. That's
something to remember for our woods composition. I really think the woods are just as lovely in
winter as in summer. They're so white and still, as if they were asleep and dreaming pretty
dreams."
"I won't mind writing that composition when its time comes," sighed Diana. "I can manage to
write about the woods, but the one we're to hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy
telling us to write a story out of our own heads!"
"Why, it's as easy as wink," said Anne.
"It's easy for you because you have an imagination," retorted Diana, "but what would you do if
you had been born without one? I suppose you have your composition all done?"
Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing miserably.
"I wrote it last Monday evening. It's called 'The Jealous Rival; or In Death Not Divided.' I read it to
Marilla and she said it was stuff and nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine.
That is the kind of critic I like. It's a sad, sweet story. I just cried like a child while I was writing it. It's
about two beautiful maidens called Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the
same village and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette with a
coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was a queenly blonde with hair like
spun gold and velvety purple eyes."
"I never saw anybody with purple eyes," said Diana dubiously.
"Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the common. Geraldine had an
alabaster brow too. I've found out what an alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of
being thirteen. You know so much more than you did when you were only twelve."
"Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?" asked Diana, who was beginning to feel rather
interested in their fate.
"They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram DeVere came to their
native village and fell in love with the fair Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with
her in a carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three miles; because, you
understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I found it rather hard to imagine the proposal
because I had no experience to go by. I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how men
proposed because I thought she'd likely be an authority on the subject, having so many sisters
married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall pantry when Malcolm Andres proposed to her sister
Susan. She said Malcolm told Susan that his dad had given him the farm in his own name and then
said, 'What do you say, darling pet, if we get hitched this fall?' And Susan said, 'Yes—no—I don't
know—let me see'—and there they were, engaged as quick as that. But I didn't think that sort of a
proposal was a very romantic one, so in the end I had to imagine it out as well as I could. I made it
very flowery and poetical and Bertram went on his knees, although Ruby Gillis says it isn't done
nowadays. Geraldine accepted him in a speech a page long. I can tell you I took a lot of trouble
with that speech. I rewrote it five times and I look upon it as my masterpiece. Bertram gave her a
diamond ring and a ruby necklace and told her they would go to Europe for a wedding tour, for he
was immensely wealthy. But then, alas, shadows began to darken over their path. Cordelia was
secretly in love with Bertram herself and when Geraldine told her about the engagement she was
simply furious, especially when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring. All her affection for
Geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she should never marry Bertram. But she
pretended to be Geraldine's friend the same as ever. One evening they were standing on the
bridge over a rushing turbulent stream and Cordelia, thinking they were alone, pushed Geraldine
over the brink with a wild, mocking, 'Ha, ha, ha.' But Bertram saw it all and he at once plunged into
the current, exclaiming, 'I will save thee, my peerless Geraldine.' But alas, he had forgotten he
couldn't swim, and they were both drowned, clasped in each other's arms. Their bodies were
washed ashore soon afterwards. They were buried in the one grave and their funeral was most
imposing, Diana. It's so much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for
Cordelia, she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic asylum. I thought that was a
poetical retribution for her crime."
"How perfectly lovely!" sighed Diana, who belonged to Matthew's school of critics. "I don't see
how you can make up such thrilling things out of your own head, Anne. I wish my imagination was
as good as yours."
"It would be if you'd only cultivate it," said Anne cheeringly. "I've just thought of a plan, Diana. Let
you and me have a story club all our own and write stories for practice. I'll help you along until you
can do them by yourself. You ought to cultivate your imagination, you know. Miss Stacy says so.
Only we must take the right way. I told her about the Haunted Wood, but she said we went the
wrong way about it in that."
This was how the story club came into existence. It was limited to Diana and Anne at first, but
soon it was extended to include Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis and one or two others who felt that
their imaginations needed cultivating. No boys were allowed in it—although Ruby Gillis opined that
their admission would make it more exciting—and each member had to produce one story a
week.
"It's extremely interesting," Anne told Marilla. "Each girl has to read her story out loud and then
we talk it over. We are going to keep them all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants.
We each write under a nom-de-plume. Mine is Rosamond Montmorency. All the girls do pretty well.
Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental. She puts too much lovemaking into her stories and you know too
much is worse than too little. Jane never puts any because she says it makes her feel so silly when
she had to read it out loud. Jane's stories are extremely sensible. Then Diana puts too many
murders into hers. She says most of the time she doesn't know what to do with the people so she
kills them off to get rid of them. I mostly always have to tell them what to write about, but that isn't
hard for I've millions of ideas."
"I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet," scoffed Marilla. "You'll get a pack of
nonsense into your heads and waste time that should be put on your lessons. Reading stories is
bad enough but writing them is worse."
"But we're so careful to put a moral into them all, Marilla," explained Anne. "I insist upon that. All
the good people are rewarded and all the bad ones are suitably punished. I'm sure that must have
a wholesome effect. The moral is the great thing. Mr. Allan says so. I read one of my stories to him
and Mrs. Allan and they both agreed that the moral was excellent. Only they laughed in the wrong
places. I like it better when people cry. Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the
pathetic parts. Diana wrote her Aunt Josephine about our club and her Aunt Josephine wrote back
that we were to send her some of our stories. So we copied out four of our very best and sent
them. Miss Josephine Barry wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life.
That kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost everybody died. But
I'm glad Miss Barry liked them. It shows our club is doing some good in the world. Mrs. Allan says
that ought to be our object in everything. I do really try to make it my object but I forget so often
when I'm having fun. I hope I shall be a little like Mrs. Allan when I grow up. Do you think there is any
prospect of it, Marilla?"
"I shouldn't say there was a great deal" was Marilla's encouraging answer. "I'm sure Mrs. Allan
was never such a silly, forgetful little girl as you are."
"No; but she wasn't always so good as she is now either," said Anne seriously. "She told me so
herself—that is, she said she was a dreadful mischief when she was a girl and was always getting
into scrapes. I felt so encouraged when I heard that. Is it very wicked of me, Marilla, to feel
encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and mischievous? Mrs. Lynde says it is.
Mrs. Lynde says she always feels shocked when she hears of anyone ever having been naughty,
no matter how small they were. Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess that when he
was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt's pantry and she never had any respect for that
minister again. Now, I wouldn't have felt that way. I'd have thought that it was real noble of him to
confess it, and I'd have thought what an encouraging thing it would be for small boys nowadays
who do naughty things and are sorry for them to know that perhaps they may grow up to be
ministers in spite of it. That's how I'd feel, Marilla."
"The way I feel at present, Anne," said Marilla, "is that it's high time you had those dishes
washed. You've taken half an hour longer than you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first
and talk afterwards."
CHAPTER XXVII. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit
Marilla, walking home one late April evening from an Aid meeting, realized that the winter was
over and gone with the thrill of delight that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as
well as to the youngest and merriest. Marilla was not given to subjective analysis of her thoughts
and feelings. She probably imagined that she was thinking about the Aids and their missionary box
and the new carpet for the vestry room, but under these reflections was a harmonious
consciousness of red fields smoking into pale-purply mists in the declining sun, of long, sharp-
pointed fir shadows falling over the meadow beyond the brook, of still, crimson-budded maples
around a mirrorlike wood pool, of a wakening in the world and a stir of hidden pulses under the
gray sod. The spring was abroad in the land and Marilla's sober, middle-aged step was lighter and
swifter because of its deep, primal gladness.
Her eyes dwelt affectionately on Green Gables, peering through its network of trees and
reflecting the sunlight back from its windows in several little coruscations of glory. Marilla, as she
picked her steps along the damp lane, thought that it was really a satisfaction to know that she was
going home to a briskly snapping wood fire and a table nicely spread for tea, instead of to the cold
comfort of old Aid meeting evenings before Anne had come to Green Gables.
Consequently, when Marilla entered her kitchen and found the fire black out, with no sign of Anne
anywhere, she felt justly disappointed and irritated. She had told Anne to be sure and have tea
ready at five o'clock, but now she must hurry to take off her second-best dress and prepare the
meal herself against Matthew's return from plowing.
"I'll settle Miss Anne when she comes home," said Marilla grimly, as she shaved up kindlings
with a carving knife and with more vim than was strictly necessary. Matthew had come in and was
waiting patiently for his tea in his corner. "She's gadding off somewhere with Diana, writing stories
or practicing dialogues or some such tomfoolery, and never thinking once about the time or her
duties. She's just got to be pulled up short and sudden on this sort of thing. I don't care if Mrs. Allan
does say she's the brightest and sweetest child she ever knew. She may be bright and sweet
enough, but her head is full of nonsense and there's never any knowing what shape it'll break out in
next. Just as soon as she grows out of one freak she takes up with another. But there! Here I am
saying the very thing I was so riled with Rachel Lynde for saying at the Aid today. I was real glad
when Mrs. Allan spoke up for Anne, for if she hadn't I know I'd have said something too sharp to
Rachel before everybody. Anne's got plenty of faults, goodness knows, and far be it from me to
deny it. But I'm bringing her up and not Rachel Lynde, who'd pick faults in the Angel Gabriel himself
if he lived in Avonlea. Just the same, Anne has no business to leave the house like this when I told
her she was to stay home this afternoon and look after things. I must say, with all her faults, I never
found her disobedient or untrustworthy before and I'm real sorry to find her so now."
"Well now, I dunno," said Matthew, who, being patient and wise and, above all, hungry, had
deemed it best to let Marilla talk her wrath out unhindered, having learned by experience that she
got through with whatever work was on hand much quicker if not delayed by untimely argument.
"Perhaps you're judging her too hasty, Marilla. Don't call her untrustworthy until you're sure she has
disobeyed you. Mebbe it can all be explained—Anne's a great hand at explaining."
"She's not here when I told her to stay," retorted Marilla. "I reckon she'll find it hard to explain
THAT to my satisfaction. Of course I knew you'd take her part, Matthew. But I'm bringing her up, not
you."
It was dark when supper was ready, and still no sign of Anne, coming hurriedly over the log
bridge or up Lover's Lane, breathless and repentant with a sense of neglected duties. Marilla
washed and put away the dishes grimly. Then, wanting a candle to light her way down the cellar,
she went up to the east gable for the one that generally stood on Anne's table. Lighting it, she
turned around to see Anne herself lying on the bed, face downward among the pillows.
"Mercy on us," said astonished Marilla, "have you been asleep, Anne?"
"No," was the muffled reply.
"Are you sick then?" demanded Marilla anxiously, going over to the bed.
Anne cowered deeper into her pillows as if desirous of hiding herself forever from mortal eyes.
"No. But please, Marilla, go away and don't look at me. I'm in the depths of despair and I don't
care who gets head in class or writes the best composition or sings in the Sunday-school choir any
more. Little things like that are of no importance now because I don't suppose I'll ever be able to go
anywhere again. My career is closed. Please, Marilla, go away and don't look at me."
"Did anyone ever hear the like?" the mystified Marilla wanted to know. "Anne Shirley, whatever is
the matter with you? What have you done? Get right up this minute and tell me. This minute, I say.
There now, what is it?"
Anne had slid to the floor in despairing obedience.
"Look at my hair, Marilla," she whispered.
Accordingly, Marilla lifted her candle and looked scrutinizingly at Anne's hair, flowing in heavy
masses down her back. It certainly had a very strange appearance.
"Anne Shirley, what have you done to your hair? Why, it's GREEN!"
Green it might be called, if it were any earthly color—a queer, dull, bronzy green, with streaks
here and there of the original red to heighten the ghastly effect. Never in all her life had Marilla seen
anything so grotesque as Anne's hair at that moment.
"Yes, it's green," moaned Anne. "I thought nothing could be as bad as red hair. But now I know
it's ten times worse to have green hair. Oh, Marilla, you little know how utterly wretched I am."
"I little know how you got into this fix, but I mean to find out," said Marilla. "Come right down to the
kitchen—it's too cold up here—and tell me just what you've done. I've been expecting something
queer for some time. You haven't got into any scrape for over two months, and I was sure another
one was due. Now, then, what did you do to your hair?"
"I dyed it."
"Dyed it! Dyed your hair! Anne Shirley, didn't you know it was a wicked thing to do?"
"Yes, I knew it was a little wicked," admitted Anne. "But I thought it was worth while to be a little
wicked to get rid of red hair. I counted the cost, Marilla. Besides, I meant to be extra good in other
ways to make up for it."
"Well," said Marilla sarcastically, "if I'd decided it was worth while to dye my hair I'd have dyed it
a decent color at least. I wouldn't have dyed it green."
"But I didn't mean to dye it green, Marilla," protested Anne dejectedly. "If I was wicked I meant to
be wicked to some purpose. He said it would turn my hair a beautiful raven black—he positively
assured me that it would. How could I doubt his word, Marilla? I know what it feels like to have your
word doubted. And Mrs. Allan says we should never suspect anyone of not telling us the truth
unless we have proof that they're not. I have proof now—green hair is proof enough for anybody.
But I hadn't then and I believed every word he said IMPLICITLY."
"Who said? Who are you talking about?"
"The peddler that was here this afternoon. I bought the dye from him."
"Anne Shirley, how often have I told you never to let one of those Italians in the house! I don't
believe in encouraging them to come around at all."
"Oh, I didn't let him in the house. I remembered what you told me, and I went out, carefully shut
the door, and looked at his things on the step. Besides, he wasn't an Italian—he was a German
Jew. He had a big box full of very interesting things and he told me he was working hard to make
enough money to bring his wife and children out from Germany. He spoke so feelingly about them
that it touched my heart. I wanted to buy something from him to help him in such a worthy object.
Then all at once I saw the bottle of hair dye. The peddler said it was warranted to dye any hair a
beautiful raven black and wouldn't wash off. In a trice I saw myself with beautiful raven-black hair
and the temptation was irresistible. But the price of the bottle was seventy-five cents and I had only
fifty cents left out of my chicken money. I think the peddler had a very kind heart, for he said that,
seeing it was me, he'd sell it for fifty cents and that was just giving it away. So I bought it, and as
soon as he had gone I came up here and applied it with an old hairbrush as the directions said. I
used up the whole bottle, and oh, Marilla, when I saw the dreadful color it turned my hair I repented
of being wicked, I can tell you. And I've been repenting ever since."
"Well, I hope you'll repent to good purpose," said Marilla severely, "and that you've got your eyes
opened to where your vanity has led you, Anne. Goodness knows what's to be done. I suppose the
first thing is to give your hair a good washing and see if that will do any good."
Accordingly, Anne washed her hair, scrubbing it vigorously with soap and water, but for all the
difference it made she might as well have been scouring its original red. The peddler had certainly
spoken the truth when he declared that the dye wouldn't wash off, however his veracity might be
impeached in other respects.
"Oh, Marilla, what shall I do?" questioned Anne in tears. "I can never live this down. People have
pretty well forgotten my other mistakes—the liniment cake and setting Diana drunk and flying into a
temper with Mrs. Lynde. But they'll never forget this. They will think I am not respectable. Oh,
Marilla, 'what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.' That is poetry, but it is
true. And oh, how Josie Pye will laugh! Marilla, I CANNOT face Josie Pye. I am the unhappiest girl
in Prince Edward Island."
Anne's unhappiness continued for a week. During that time she went nowhere and shampooed
her hair every day. Diana alone of outsiders knew the fatal secret, but she promised solemnly
never to tell, and it may be stated here and now that she kept her word. At the end of the week
Marilla said decidedly:
"It's no use, Anne. That is fast dye if ever there was any. Your hair must be cut off; there is no
other way. You can't go out with it looking like that."
Anne's lips quivered, but she realized the bitter truth of Marilla's remarks. With a dismal sigh she
went for the scissors.
"Please cut it off at once, Marilla, and have it over. Oh, I feel that my heart is broken. This is such
an unromantic affliction. The girls in books lose their hair in fevers or sell it to get money for some
good deed, and I'm sure I wouldn't mind losing my hair in some such fashion half so much. But
there is nothing comforting in having your hair cut off because you've dyed it a dreadful color, is
there? I'm going to weep all the time you're cutting it off, if it won't interfere. It seems such a tragic
thing."
Anne wept then, but later on, when she went upstairs and looked in the glass, she was calm with
despair. Marilla had done her work thoroughly and it had been necessary to shingle the hair as
closely as possible. The result was not becoming, to state the case as mildly as may be. Anne
promptly turned her glass to the wall.
"I'll never, never look at myself again until my hair grows," she exclaimed passionately.
Then she suddenly righted the glass.
"Yes, I will, too. I'd do penance for being wicked that way. I'll look at myself every time I come to
my room and see how ugly I am. And I won't try to imagine it away, either. I never thought I was vain
about my hair, of all things, but now I know I was, in spite of its being red, because it was so long
and thick and curly. I expect something will happen to my nose next."
Anne's clipped head made a sensation in school on the following Monday, but to her relief
nobody guessed the real reason for it, not even Josie Pye, who, however, did not fail to inform
Anne that she looked like a perfect scarecrow.
"I didn't say anything when Josie said that to me," Anne confided that evening to Marilla, who
was lying on the sofa after one of her headaches, "because I thought it was part of my punishment
and I ought to bear it patiently. It's hard to be told you look like a scarecrow and I wanted to say
something back. But I didn't. I just swept her one scornful look and then I forgave her. It makes you
feel very virtuous when you forgive people, doesn't it? I mean to devote all my energies to being
good after this and I shall never try to be beautiful again. Of course it's better to be good. I know it
is, but it's sometimes so hard to believe a thing even when you know it. I do really want to be good,
Marilla, like you and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy, and grow up to be a credit to you. Diana says when
my hair begins to grow to tie a black velvet ribbon around my head with a bow at one side. She
says she thinks it will be very becoming. I will call it a snood—that sounds so romantic. But am I
talking too much, Marilla? Does it hurt your head?"
"My head is better now. It was terrible bad this afternoon, though. These headaches of mine are
getting worse and worse. I'll have to see a doctor about them. As for your chatter, I don't know that I
mind it—I've got so used to it."
Which was Marilla's way of saying that she liked to hear it.
CHAPTER XXVIII. An Unfortunate Lily Maid
"OF course you must be Elaine, Anne," said Diana. "I could never have the courage to float
down there."
"Nor I," said Ruby Gillis, with a shiver. "I don't mind floating down when there's two or three of us
in the flat and we can sit up. It's fun then. But to lie down and pretend I was dead—I just couldn't. I'd
die really of fright."
"Of course it would be romantic," conceded Jane Andrews, "but I know I couldn't keep still. I'd be
popping up every minute or so to see where I was and if I wasn't drifting too far out. And you know,
Anne, that would spoil the effect."
"But it's so ridiculous to have a redheaded Elaine," mourned Anne. "I'm not afraid to float down
and I'd love to be Elaine. But it's ridiculous just the same. Ruby ought to be Elaine because she is
so fair and has such lovely long golden hair—Elaine had 'all her bright hair streaming down,' you
know. And Elaine was the lily maid. Now, a red-haired person cannot be a lily maid."
"Your complexion is just as fair as Ruby's," said Diana earnestly, "and your hair is ever so much
darker than it used to be before you cut it."
"Oh, do you really think so?" exclaimed Anne, flushing sensitively with delight. "I've sometimes
thought it was myself—but I never dared to ask anyone for fear she would tell me it wasn't. Do you
think it could be called auburn now, Diana?"
"Yes, and I think it is real pretty," said Diana, looking admiringly at the short, silky curls that
clustered over Anne's head and were held in place by a very jaunty black velvet ribbon and bow.
They were standing on the bank of the pond, below Orchard Slope, where a little headland
fringed with birches ran out from the bank; at its tip was a small wooden platform built out into the
water for the convenience of fishermen and duck hunters. Ruby and Jane were spending the
midsummer afternoon with Diana, and Anne had come over to play with them.
Anne and Diana had spent most of their playtime that summer on and about the pond. Idlewild
was a thing of the past, Mr. Bell having ruthlessly cut down the little circle of trees in his back
pasture in the spring. Anne had sat among the stumps and wept, not without an eye to the romance
of it; but she was speedily consoled, for, after all, as she and Diana said, big girls of thirteen, going
on fourteen, were too old for such childish amusements as playhouses, and there were more
fascinating sports to be found about the pond. It was splendid to fish for trout over the bridge and
the two girls learned to row themselves about in the little flat-bottomed dory Mr. Barry kept for duck
shooting.
It was Anne's idea that they dramatize Elaine. They had studied Tennyson's poem in school the
preceding winter, the Superintendent of Education having prescribed it in the English course for
the Prince Edward Island schools. They had analyzed and parsed it and torn it to pieces in general
until it was a wonder there was any meaning at all left in it for them, but at least the fair lily maid and
Lancelot and Guinevere and King Arthur had become very real people to them, and Anne was
devoured by secret regret that she had not been born in Camelot. Those days, she said, were so
much more romantic than the present.
Anne's plan was hailed with enthusiasm. The girls had discovered that if the flat were pushed off
from the landing place it would drift down with the current under the bridge and finally strand itself
on another headland lower down which ran out at a curve in the pond. They had often gone down
like this and nothing could be more convenient for playing Elaine.
"Well, I'll be Elaine," said Anne, yielding reluctantly, for, although she would have been delighted
to play the principal character, yet her artistic sense demanded fitness for it and this, she felt, her
limitations made impossible. "Ruby, you must be King Arthur and Jane will be Guinevere and
Diana must be Lancelot. But first you must be the brothers and the father. We can't have the old
dumb servitor because there isn't room for two in the flat when one is lying down. We must pall the
barge all its length in blackest samite. That old black shawl of your mother's will be just the thing,
Diana."
The black shawl having been procured, Anne spread it over the flat and then lay down on the
bottom, with closed eyes and hands folded over her breast.
"Oh, she does look really dead," whispered Ruby Gillis nervously, watching the still, white little
face under the flickering shadows of the birches. "It makes me feel frightened, girls. Do you
suppose it's really right to act like this? Mrs. Lynde says that all play-acting is abominably wicked."
"Ruby, you shouldn't talk about Mrs. Lynde," said Anne severely. "It spoils the effect because this
is hundreds of years before Mrs. Lynde was born. Jane, you arrange this. It's silly for Elaine to be
talking when she's dead."
Jane rose to the occasion. Cloth of gold for coverlet there was none, but an old piano scarf of
yellow Japanese crepe was an excellent substitute. A white lily was not obtainable just then, but the
effect of a tall blue iris placed in one of Anne's folded hands was all that could be desired.
"Now, she's all ready," said Jane. "We must kiss her quiet brows and, Diana, you say, 'Sister,
farewell forever,' and Ruby, you say, 'Farewell, sweet sister,' both of you as sorrowfully as you
possibly can. Anne, for goodness sake smile a little. You know Elaine 'lay as though she smiled.'
That's better. Now push the flat off."
The flat was accordingly pushed off, scraping roughly over an old embedded stake in the
process. Diana and Jane and Ruby only waited long enough to see it caught in the current and
headed for the bridge before scampering up through the woods, across the road, and down to the
lower headland where, as Lancelot and Guinevere and the King, they were to be in readiness to
receive the lily maid.
For a few minutes Anne, drifting slowly down, enjoyed the romance of her situation to the full.
Then something happened not at all romantic. The flat began to leak. In a very few moments it was
necessary for Elaine to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall of blackest
samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her barge through which the water was
literally pouring. That sharp stake at the landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed on the flat.
Anne did not know this, but it did not take her long to realize that she was in a dangerous plight. At
this rate the flat would fill and sink long before it could drift to the lower headland. Where were the
oars? Left behind at the landing!
Anne gave one gasping little scream which nobody ever heard; she was white to the lips, but she
did not lose her self-possession. There was one chance—just one.
"I was horribly frightened," she told Mrs. Allan the next day, "and it seemed like years while the
flat was drifting down to the bridge and the water rising in it every moment. I prayed, Mrs. Allan,
most earnestly, but I didn't shut my eyes to pray, for I knew the only way God could save me was to
let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge piles for me to climb up on it. You know the piles
are just old tree trunks and there are lots of knots and old branch stubs on them. It was proper to
pray, but I had to do my part by watching out and right well I knew it. I just said, 'Dear God, please
take the flat close to a pile and I'll do the rest,' over and over again. Under such circumstances you
don't think much about making a flowery prayer. But mine was answered, for the flat bumped right
into a pile for a minute and I flung the scarf and the shawl over my shoulder and scrambled up on a
big providential stub. And there I was, Mrs. Allan, clinging to that slippery old pile with no way of
getting up or down. It was a very unromantic position, but I didn't think about that at the time. You
don't think much about romance when you have just escaped from a watery grave. I said a grateful
prayer at once and then I gave all my attention to holding on tight, for I knew I should probably have
to depend on human aid to get back to dry land."
The flat drifted under the bridge and then promptly sank in midstream. Ruby, Jane, and Diana,
already awaiting it on the lower headland, saw it disappear before their very eyes and had not a
doubt but that Anne had gone down with it. For a moment they stood still, white as sheets, frozen
with horror at the tragedy; then, shrieking at the tops of their voices, they started on a frantic run up
through the woods, never pausing as they crossed the main road to glance the way of the bridge.
Anne, clinging desperately to her precarious foothold, saw their flying forms and heard their
shrieks. Help would soon come, but meanwhile her position was a very uncomfortable one.
The minutes passed by, each seeming an hour to the unfortunate lily maid. Why didn't somebody
come? Where had the girls gone? Suppose they had fainted, one and all! Suppose nobody ever
came! Suppose she grew so tired and cramped that she could hold on no longer! Anne looked at
the wicked green depths below her, wavering with long, oily shadows, and shivered. Her
imagination began to suggest all manner of gruesome possibilities to her.
Then, just as she thought she really could not endure the ache in her arms and wrists another
moment, Gilbert Blythe came rowing under the bridge in Harmon Andrews's dory!
Gilbert glanced up and, much to his amazement, beheld a little white scornful face looking down
upon him with big, frightened but also scornful gray eyes.
"Anne Shirley! How on earth did you get there?" he exclaimed.
Without waiting for an answer he pulled close to the pile and extended his hand. There was no
help for it; Anne, clinging to Gilbert Blythe's hand, scrambled down into the dory, where she sat,
drabbled and furious, in the stern with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe. It was certainly
extremely difficult to be dignified under the circumstances!
"What has happened, Anne?" asked Gilbert, taking up his oars. "We were playing Elaine"
explained Anne frigidly, without even looking at her rescuer, "and I had to drift down to Camelot in
the barge—I mean the flat. The flat began to leak and I climbed out on the pile. The girls went for
help. Will you be kind enough to row me to the landing?"
Gilbert obligingly rowed to the landing and Anne, disdaining assistance, sprang nimbly on shore.
"I'm very much obliged to you," she said haughtily as she turned away. But Gilbert had also
sprung from the boat and now laid a detaining hand on her arm.
"Anne," he said hurriedly, "look here. Can't we be good friends? I'm awfully sorry I made fun of
your hair that time. I didn't mean to vex you and I only meant it for a joke. Besides, it's so long ago. I
think your hair is awfully pretty now—honest I do. Let's be friends."
For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened consciousness under all her
outraged dignity that the half-shy, half-eager expression in Gilbert's hazel eyes was something that
was very good to see. Her heart gave a quick, queer little beat. But the bitterness of her old
grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering determination. That scene of two years before
flashed back into her recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. Gilbert had called
her "carrots" and had brought about her disgrace before the whole school. Her resentment, which
to other and older people might be as laughable as its cause, was in no whit allayed and softened
by time seemingly. She hated Gilbert Blythe! She would never forgive him!
"No," she said coldly, "I shall never be friends with you, Gilbert Blythe; and I don't want to be!"
"All right!" Gilbert sprang into his skiff with an angry color in his cheeks. "I'll never ask you to be
friends again, Anne Shirley. And I don't care either!"
He pulled away with swift defiant strokes, and Anne went up the steep, ferny little path under the
maples. She held her head very high, but she was conscious of an odd feeling of regret. She
almost wished she had answered Gilbert differently. Of course, he had insulted her terribly, but
still—! Altogether, Anne rather thought it would be a relief to sit down and have a good cry. She was
really quite unstrung, for the reaction from her fright and cramped clinging was making itself felt.
Halfway up the path she met Jane and Diana rushing back to the pond in a state narrowly
removed from positive frenzy. They had found nobody at Orchard Slope, both Mr. and Mrs. Barry
being away. Here Ruby Gillis had succumbed to hysterics, and was left to recover from them as
best she might, while Jane and Diana flew through the Haunted Wood and across the brook to
Green Gables. There they had found nobody either, for Marilla had gone to Carmody and Matthew
was making hay in the back field.
"Oh, Anne," gasped Diana, fairly falling on the former's neck and weeping with relief and delight,
"oh, Anne—we thought—you were—drowned—and we felt like murderers—because we had
made—you be—Elaine. And Ruby is in hysterics—oh, Anne, how did you escape?"
"I climbed up on one of the piles," explained Anne wearily, "and Gilbert Blythe came along in Mr.
Andrews's dory and brought me to land."
"Oh, Anne, how splendid of him! Why, it's so romantic!" said Jane, finding breath enough for
utterance at last. "Of course you'll speak to him after this."
"Of course I won't," flashed Anne, with a momentary return of her old spirit. "And I don't want ever
to hear the word 'romantic' again, Jane Andrews. I'm awfully sorry you were so frightened, girls. It is
all my fault. I feel sure I was born under an unlucky star. Everything I do gets me or my dearest
friends into a scrape. We've gone and lost your father's flat, Diana, and I have a presentiment that
we'll not be allowed to row on the pond any more."
Anne's presentiment proved more trustworthy than presentiments are apt to do. Great was the
consternation in the Barry and Cuthbert households when the events of the afternoon became
known.
"Will you ever have any sense, Anne?" groaned Marilla.
"Oh, yes, I think I will, Marilla," returned Anne optimistically. A good cry, indulged in the grateful
solitude of the east gable, had soothed her nerves and restored her to her wonted cheerfulness. "I
think my prospects of becoming sensible are brighter now than ever."
"I don't see how," said Marilla.
"Well," explained Anne, "I've learned a new and valuable lesson today. Ever since I came to
Green Gables I've been making mistakes, and each mistake has helped to cure me of some great
shortcoming. The affair of the amethyst brooch cured me of meddling with things that didn't belong
to me. The Haunted Wood mistake cured me of letting my imagination run away with me. The
liniment cake mistake cured me of carelessness in cooking. Dyeing my hair cured me of vanity. I
never think about my hair and nose now—at least, very seldom. And today's mistake is going to
cure me of being too romantic. I have come to the conclusion that it is no use trying to be romantic
in Avonlea. It was probably easy enough in towered Camelot hundreds of years ago, but romance
is not appreciated now. I feel quite sure that you will soon see a great improvement in me in this
respect, Marilla."
"I'm sure I hope so," said Marilla skeptically.
But Matthew, who had been sitting mutely in his corner, laid a hand on Anne's shoulder when
Marilla had gone out.
"Don't give up all your romance, Anne," he whispered shyly, "a little of it is a good thing—not too
much, of course—but keep a little of it, Anne, keep a little of it."
CHAPTER XXIX. An Epoch in Anne's Life
Anne was bringing the cows home from the back pasture by way of Lover's Lane. It was a
September evening and all the gaps and clearings in the woods were brimmed up with ruby sunset
light. Here and there the lane was splashed with it, but for the most part it was already quite
shadowy beneath the maples, and the spaces under the firs were filled with a clear violet dusk like
airy wine. The winds were out in their tops, and there is no sweeter music on earth than that which
the wind makes in the fir trees at evening.
The cows swung placidly down the lane, and Anne followed them dreamily, repeating aloud the
battle canto from MARMION—which had also been part of their English course the preceding
winter and which Miss Stacy had made them learn off by heart—and exulting in its rushing lines
and the clash of spears in its imagery. When she came to the lines

The stubborn spearsmen still made good


Their dark impenetrable wood,

she stopped in ecstasy to shut her eyes that she might the better fancy herself one of that heroic
ring. When she opened them again it was to behold Diana coming through the gate that led into
the Barry field and looking so important that Anne instantly divined there was news to be told. But
betray too eager curiosity she would not.
"Isn't this evening just like a purple dream, Diana? It makes me so glad to be alive. In the
mornings I always think the mornings are best; but when evening comes I think it's lovelier still."
"It's a very fine evening," said Diana, "but oh, I have such news, Anne. Guess. You can have three
guesses."
"Charlotte Gillis is going to be married in the church after all and Mrs. Allan wants us to decorate
it," cried Anne.
"No. Charlotte's beau won't agree to that, because nobody ever has been married in the church
yet, and he thinks it would seem too much like a funeral. It's too mean, because it would be such
fun. Guess again."
"Jane's mother is going to let her have a birthday party?"
Diana shook her head, her black eyes dancing with merriment.
"I can't think what it can be," said Anne in despair, "unless it's that Moody Spurgeon
MacPherson saw you home from prayer meeting last night. Did he?"
"I should think not," exclaimed Diana indignantly. "I wouldn't be likely to boast of it if he did, the
horrid creature! I knew you couldn't guess it. Mother had a letter from Aunt Josephine today, and
Aunt Josephine wants you and me to go to town next Tuesday and stop with her for the Exhibition.
There!"
"Oh, Diana," whispered Anne, finding it necessary to lean up against a maple tree for support,
"do you really mean it? But I'm afraid Marilla won't let me go. She will say that she can't encourage
gadding about. That was what she said last week when Jane invited me to go with them in their
double-seated buggy to the American concert at the White Sands Hotel. I wanted to go, but Marilla
said I'd be better at home learning my lessons and so would Jane. I was bitterly disappointed,
Diana. I felt so heartbroken that I wouldn't say my prayers when I went to bed. But I repented of that
and got up in the middle of the night and said them."
"I'll tell you," said Diana, "we'll get Mother to ask Marilla. She'll be more likely to let you go then;
and if she does we'll have the time of our lives, Anne. I've never been to an Exhibition, and it's so
aggravating to hear the other girls talking about their trips. Jane and Ruby have been twice, and
they're going this year again."
"I'm not going to think about it at all until I know whether I can go or not," said Anne resolutely. "If I
did and then was disappointed, it would be more than I could bear. But in case I do go I'm very glad
my new coat will be ready by that time. Marilla didn't think I needed a new coat. She said my old
one would do very well for another winter and that I ought to be satisfied with having a new dress.
The dress is very pretty, Diana—navy blue and made so fashionably. Marilla always makes my
dresses fashionably now, because she says she doesn't intend to have Matthew going to Mrs.
Lynde to make them. I'm so glad. It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are
fashionable. At least, it is easier for me. I suppose it doesn't make such a difference to naturally
good people. But Matthew said I must have a new coat, so Marilla bought a lovely piece of blue
broadcloth, and it's being made by a real dressmaker over at Carmody. It's to be done Saturday
night, and I'm trying not to imagine myself walking up the church aisle on Sunday in my new suit
and cap, because I'm afraid it isn't right to imagine such things. But it just slips into my mind in
spite of me. My cap is so pretty. Matthew bought it for me the day we were over at Carmody. It is
one of those little blue velvet ones that are all the rage, with gold cord and tassels. Your new hat is
elegant, Diana, and so becoming. When I saw you come into church last Sunday my heart swelled
with pride to think you were my dearest friend. Do you suppose it's wrong for us to think so much
about our clothes? Marilla says it is very sinful. But it is such an interesting subject, isn't it?"
Marilla agreed to let Anne go to town, and it was arranged that Mr. Barry should take the girls in
on the following Tuesday. As Charlottetown was thirty miles away and Mr. Barry wished to go and
return the same day, it was necessary to make a very early start. But Anne counted it all joy, and
was up before sunrise on Tuesday morning. A glance from her window assured her that the day
would be fine, for the eastern sky behind the firs of the Haunted Wood was all silvery and
cloudless. Through the gap in the trees a light was shining in the western gable of Orchard Slope,
a token that Diana was also up.
Anne was dressed by the time Matthew had the fire on and had the breakfast ready when Marilla
came down, but for her own part was much too excited to eat. After breakfast the jaunty new cap
and jacket were donned, and Anne hastened over the brook and up through the firs to Orchard
Slope. Mr. Barry and Diana were waiting for her, and they were soon on the road.
It was a long drive, but Anne and Diana enjoyed every minute of it. It was delightful to rattle along
over the moist roads in the early red sunlight that was creeping across the shorn harvest fields. The
air was fresh and crisp, and little smoke-blue mists curled through the valleys and floated off from
the hills. Sometimes the road went through woods where maples were beginning to hang out
scarlet banners; sometimes it crossed rivers on bridges that made Anne's flesh cringe with the old,
half-delightful fear; sometimes it wound along a harbor shore and passed by a little cluster of
weather-gray fishing huts; again it mounted to hills whence a far sweep of curving upland or misty-
blue sky could be seen; but wherever it went there was much of interest to discuss. It was almost
noon when they reached town and found their way to "Beechwood." It was quite a fine old mansion,
set back from the street in a seclusion of green elms and branching beeches. Miss Barry met them
at the door with a twinkle in her sharp black eyes.
"So you've come to see me at last, you Anne-girl," she said. "Mercy, child, how you have grown!
You're taller than I am, I declare. And you're ever so much better looking than you used to be, too.
But I dare say you know that without being told."
"Indeed I didn't," said Anne radiantly. "I know I'm not so freckled as I used to be, so I've much to
be thankful for, but I really hadn't dared to hope there was any other improvement. I'm so glad you
think there is, Miss Barry." Miss Barry's house was furnished with "great magnificence," as Anne
told Marilla afterward. The two little country girls were rather abashed by the splendor of the parlor
where Miss Barry left them when she went to see about dinner.
"Isn't it just like a palace?" whispered Diana. "I never was in Aunt Josephine's house before, and
I'd no idea it was so grand. I just wish Julia Bell could see this—she puts on such airs about her
mother's parlor."
"Velvet carpet," sighed Anne luxuriously, "and silk curtains! I've dreamed of such things, Diana.
But do you know I don't believe I feel very comfortable with them after all. There are so many things
in this room and all so splendid that there is no scope for imagination. That is one consolation
when you are poor—there are so many more things you can imagine about."
Their sojourn in town was something that Anne and Diana dated from for years. From first to last
it was crowded with delights.
On Wednesday Miss Barry took them to the Exhibition grounds and kept them there all day.
"It was splendid," Anne related to Marilla later on. "I never imagined anything so interesting. I
don't really know which department was the most interesting. I think I liked the horses and the
flowers and the fancywork best. Josie Pye took first prize for knitted lace. I was real glad she did.
And I was glad that I felt glad, for it shows I'm improving, don't you think, Marilla, when I can rejoice
in Josie's success? Mr. Harmon Andrews took second prize for Gravenstein apples and Mr. Bell
took first prize for a pig. Diana said she thought it was ridiculous for a Sunday-school
superintendent to take a prize in pigs, but I don't see why. Do you? She said she would always
think of it after this when he was praying so solemnly. Clara Louise MacPherson took a prize for
painting, and Mrs. Lynde got first prize for homemade butter and cheese. So Avonlea was pretty
well represented, wasn't it? Mrs. Lynde was there that day, and I never knew how much I really liked
her until I saw her familiar face among all those strangers. There were thousands of people there,
Marilla. It made me feel dreadfully insignificant. And Miss Barry took us up to the grandstand to see
the horse races. Mrs. Lynde wouldn't go; she said horse racing was an abomination and, she
being a church member, thought it her bounden duty to set a good example by staying away. But
there were so many there I don't believe Mrs. Lynde's absence would ever be noticed. I don't think,
though, that I ought to go very often to horse races, because they ARE awfully fascinating. Diana
got so excited that she offered to bet me ten cents that the red horse would win. I didn't believe he
would, but I refused to bet, because I wanted to tell Mrs. Allan all about everything, and I felt sure it
wouldn't do to tell her that. It's always wrong to do anything you can't tell the minister's wife. It's as
good as an extra conscience to have a minister's wife for your friend. And I was very glad I didn't
bet, because the red horse DID win, and I would have lost ten cents. So you see that virtue was its
own reward. We saw a man go up in a balloon. I'd love to go up in a balloon, Marilla; it would be
simply thrilling; and we saw a man selling fortunes. You paid him ten cents and a little bird picked
out your fortune for you. Miss Barry gave Diana and me ten cents each to have our fortunes told.
Mine was that I would marry a dark-complected man who was very wealthy, and I would go across
water to live. I looked carefully at all the dark men I saw after that, but I didn't care much for any of
them, and anyhow I suppose it's too early to be looking out for him yet. Oh, it was a never-to-be-
forgotten day, Marilla. I was so tired I couldn't sleep at night. Miss Barry put us in the spare room,
according to promise. It was an elegant room, Marilla, but somehow sleeping in a spare room isn't
what I used to think it was. That's the worst of growing up, and I'm beginning to realize it. The things
you wanted so much when you were a child don't seem half so wonderful to you when you get
them."
Thursday the girls had a drive in the park, and in the evening Miss Barry took them to a concert
in the Academy of Music, where a noted prima donna was to sing. To Anne the evening was a
glittering vision of delight.
"Oh, Marilla, it was beyond description. I was so excited I couldn't even talk, so you may know
what it was like. I just sat in enraptured silence. Madame Selitsky was perfectly beautiful, and wore
white satin and diamonds. But when she began to sing I never thought about anything else. Oh, I
can't tell you how I felt. But it seemed to me that it could never be hard to be good any more. I felt
like I do when I look up to the stars. Tears came into my eyes, but, oh, they were such happy tears. I
was so sorry when it was all over, and I told Miss Barry I didn't see how I was ever to return to
common life again. She said she thought if we went over to the restaurant across the street and
had an ice cream it might help me. That sounded so prosaic; but to my surprise I found it true. The
ice cream was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and dissipated to be sitting there eating it at
eleven o'clock at night. Diana said she believed she was born for city life. Miss Barry asked me
what my opinion was, but I said I would have to think it over very seriously before I could tell her
what I really thought. So I thought it over after I went to bed. That is the best time to think things out.
And I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn't born for city life and that I was glad of it. It's nice
to be eating ice cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o'clock at night once in a while; but as a
regular thing I'd rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my
sleep that the stars were shining outside and that the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook.
I told Miss Barry so at breakfast the next morning and she laughed. Miss Barry generally laughed at
anything I said, even when I said the most solemn things. I don't think I liked it, Marilla, because I
wasn't trying to be funny. But she is a most hospitable lady and treated us royally."
Friday brought going-home time, and Mr. Barry drove in for the girls.
"Well, I hope you've enjoyed yourselves," said Miss Barry, as she bade them good-bye.
"Indeed we have," said Diana.
"And you, Anne-girl?"
"I've enjoyed every minute of the time," said Anne, throwing her arms impulsively about the old
woman's neck and kissing her wrinkled cheek. Diana would never have dared to do such a thing
and felt rather aghast at Anne's freedom. But Miss Barry was pleased, and she stood on her
veranda and watched the buggy out of sight. Then she went back into her big house with a sigh. It
seemed very lonely, lacking those fresh young lives. Miss Barry was a rather selfish old lady, if the
truth must be told, and had never cared much for anybody but herself. She valued people only as
they were of service to her or amused her. Anne had amused her, and consequently stood high in
the old lady's good graces. But Miss Barry found herself thinking less about Anne's quaint
speeches than of her fresh enthusiasms, her transparent emotions, her little winning ways, and the
sweetness of her eyes and lips.
"I thought Marilla Cuthbert was an old fool when I heard she'd adopted a girl out of an orphan
asylum," she said to herself, "but I guess she didn't make much of a mistake after all. If I'd a child
like Anne in the house all the time I'd be a better and happier woman."
Anne and Diana found the drive home as pleasant as the drive in—pleasanter, indeed, since
there was the delightful consciousness of home waiting at the end of it. It was sunset when they
passed through White Sands and turned into the shore road. Beyond, the Avonlea hills came out
darkly against the saffron sky. Behind them the moon was rising out of the sea that grew all radiant
and transfigured in her light. Every little cove along the curving road was a marvel of dancing
ripples. The waves broke with a soft swish on the rocks below them, and the tang of the sea was in
the strong, fresh air.
"Oh, but it's good to be alive and to be going home," breathed Anne.
When she crossed the log bridge over the brook the kitchen light of Green Gables winked her a
friendly welcome back, and through the open door shone the hearth fire, sending out its warm red
glow athwart the chilly autumn night. Anne ran blithely up the hill and into the kitchen, where a hot
supper was waiting on the table.
"So you've got back?" said Marilla, folding up her knitting.
"Yes, and oh, it's so good to be back," said Anne joyously. "I could kiss everything, even to the
clock. Marilla, a broiled chicken! You don't mean to say you cooked that for me!"
"Yes, I did," said Marilla. "I thought you'd be hungry after such a drive and need something real
appetizing. Hurry and take off your things, and we'll have supper as soon as Matthew comes in. I'm
glad you've got back, I must say. It's been fearful lonesome here without you, and I never put in four
longer days."
After supper Anne sat before the fire between Matthew and Marilla, and gave them a full account
of her visit.
"I've had a splendid time," she concluded happily, "and I feel that it marks an epoch in my life.
But the best of it all was the coming home."
CHAPTER XXX. The Queens Class Is Organized
Marilla laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair. Her eyes were tired, and she
thought vaguely that she must see about having her glasses changed the next time she went to
town, for her eyes had grown tired very often of late.
It was nearly dark, for the full November twilight had fallen around Green Gables, and the only
light in the kitchen came from the dancing red flames in the stove.
Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that joyous glow where the
sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled from the maple cordwood. She had been
reading, but her book had slipped to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her
parted lips. Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and rainbows of
her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling were happening to her in cloudland
—adventures that always turned out triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of
actual life.
Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been suffered to reveal itself in any
clearer light than that soft mingling of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should
display itself easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never learn. But she had
learned to love this slim, gray-eyed girl with an affection all the deeper and stronger from its very
undemonstrativeness. Her love made her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an
uneasy feeling that it was rather sinful to set one's heart so intensely on any human creature as she
had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a sort of unconscious penance for this by being
stricter and more critical than if the girl had been less dear to her. Certainly Anne herself had no
idea how Marilla loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that Marilla was very hard to please
and distinctly lacking in sympathy and understanding. But she always checked the thought
reproachfully, remembering what she owed to Marilla.
"Anne," said Marilla abruptly, "Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when you were out with
Diana."
Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh.
"Was she? Oh, I'm so sorry I wasn't in. Why didn't you call me, Marilla? Diana and I were only
over in the Haunted Wood. It's lovely in the woods now. All the little wood things—the ferns and the
satin leaves and the crackerberries—have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them
away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that
came tiptoeing along the last moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn't say much about that,
though. Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about imagining ghosts into
the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad effect on Diana's imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says
Myrtle Bell is a blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby said she
guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her. Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but
young men, and the older she gets the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but
it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising
each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids and live together forever. Diana hasn't
quite made up her mind though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some
wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal about serious
subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older than we used to be that it isn't
becoming to talk of childish matters. It's such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss
Stacy took all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and talked to us
about it. She said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in
our teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be developed and the
foundation laid for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never
build anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked the matter over coming home from school.
We felt extremely solemn, Marilla. And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and
form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as possible, so that by the time
we were twenty our characters would be properly developed. It's perfectly appalling to think of
being twenty, Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy here this
afternoon?"
"That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you'll ever give me a chance to get a word in edgewise.
She was talking about you."
"About me?" Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed:
"Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly I did, but I forgot. Miss
Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying
my Canadian history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour, and I had just got
to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply wild to know how it turned out—although I felt
sure Ben Hur must win, because it wouldn't be poetical justice if he didn't—so I spread the history
open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and my knee. I just looked as if I
were studying Canadian history, you know, while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur. I was so
interested in it that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at once I just looked
up and there she was looking down at me, so reproachful-like. I can't tell you how ashamed I felt,
Marilla, especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben Hur away, but she never
said a word then. She kept me in at recess and talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in
two respects. First, I was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies; and secondly, I was
deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a history when it was a storybook
instead. I had never realized until that moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was
shocked. I cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I'd never do such a thing again;
and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to
see how the chariot race turned out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn't require that, and she forgave
me freely. So I think it wasn't very kind of her to come up here to you about it after all."
"Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and its only your guilty conscience that's
the matter with you. You have no business to be taking storybooks to school. You read too many
novels anyhow. When I was a girl I wasn't so much as allowed to look at a novel."
"Oh, how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it's really such a religious book?" protested Anne.
"Of course it's a little too exciting to be proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays.
And I never read ANY book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a proper book for
a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read. Miss Stacy made me promise that. She found me
reading a book one day called, The Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had
lent me, and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It just curdled the blood in my veins. But
Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome book, and she asked me not to read any more of
it or any like it. I didn't mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was AGONIZING to give
back that book without knowing how it turned out. But my love for Miss Stacy stood the test and I
did. It's really wonderful, Marilla, what you can do when you're truly anxious to please a certain
person."
"Well, I guess I'll light the lamp and get to work," said Marilla. "I see plainly that you don't want to
hear what Miss Stacy had to say. You're more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in
anything else."
"Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it," cried Anne contritely. "I won't say another word—not
one. I know I talk too much, but I am really trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet
if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit for it. Please
tell me, Marilla."
"Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students who mean to study
for the entrance examination into Queen's. She intends to give them extra lessons for an hour after
school. And she came to ask Matthew and me if we would like to have you join it. What do you
think about it yourself, Anne? Would you like to go to Queen's and pass for a teacher?"
"Oh, Marilla!" Anne straightened to her knees and clasped her hands. "It's been the dream of my
life—that is, for the last six months, ever since Ruby and Jane began to talk of studying for the
Entrance. But I didn't say anything about it, because I supposed it would be perfectly useless. I'd
love to be a teacher. But won't it be dreadfully expensive? Mr. Andrews says it cost him one
hundred and fifty dollars to put Prissy through, and Prissy wasn't a dunce in geometry."
"I guess you needn't worry about that part of it. When Matthew and I took you to bring up we
resolved we would do the best we could for you and give you a good education. I believe in a girl
being fitted to earn her own living whether she ever has to or not. You'll always have a home at
Green Gables as long as Matthew and I are here, but nobody knows what is going to happen in
this uncertain world, and it's just as well to be prepared. So you can join the Queen's class if you
like, Anne."
"Oh, Marilla, thank you." Anne flung her arms about Marilla's waist and looked up earnestly into
her face. "I'm extremely grateful to you and Matthew. And I'll study as hard as I can and do my very
best to be a credit to you. I warn you not to expect much in geometry, but I think I can hold my own
in anything else if I work hard."
"I dare say you'll get along well enough. Miss Stacy says you are bright and diligent." Not for
worlds would Marilla have told Anne just what Miss Stacy had said about her; that would have been
to pamper vanity. "You needn't rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books. There is no
hurry. You won't be ready to try the Entrance for a year and a half yet. But it's well to begin in time
and be thoroughly grounded, Miss Stacy says."
"I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now," said Anne blissfully, "because I have a
purpose in life. Mr. Allan says everybody should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only
he says we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a worthy purpose to want
to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn't you, Marilla? I think it's a very noble profession."
The Queen's class was organized in due time. Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, Ruby Gillis, Jane
Andrews, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, and Moody Spurgeon MacPherson joined it. Diana Barry did
not, as her parents did not intend to send her to Queen's. This seemed nothing short of a calamity
to Anne. Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the croup, had she and Diana been
separated in anything. On the evening when the Queen's class first remained in school for the extra
lessons and Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through the Birch
Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep her seat and refrain from rushing
impulsively after her chum. A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of
her uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds would Anne have had
Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears.
"But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of death, as Mr. Allan said in his
sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go out alone," she said mournfully that night. "I thought how
splendid it would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance, too. But we
can't have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs. Lynde says. Mrs. Lynde isn't exactly a
comforting person sometimes, but there's no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I
think the Queen's class is going to be extremely interesting. Jane and Ruby are just going to study
to be teachers. That is the height of their ambition. Ruby says she will only teach for two years after
she gets through, and then she intends to be married. Jane says she will devote her whole life to
teaching, and never, never marry, because you are paid a salary for teaching, but a husband won't
pay you anything, and growls if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Jane
speaks from mournful experience, for Mrs. Lynde says that her father is a perfect old crank, and
meaner than second skimmings. Josie Pye says she is just going to college for education's sake,
because she won't have to earn her own living; she says of course it is different with orphans who
are living on charity—THEY have to hustle. Moody Spurgeon is going to be a minister. Mrs. Lynde
says he couldn't be anything else with a name like that to live up to. I hope it isn't wicked of me,
Marilla, but really the thought of Moody Spurgeon being a minister makes me laugh. He's such a
funny-looking boy with that big fat face, and his little blue eyes, and his ears sticking out like flaps.
But perhaps he will be more intellectual looking when he grows up. Charlie Sloane says he's going
to go into politics and be a member of Parliament, but Mrs. Lynde says he'll never succeed at that,
because the Sloanes are all honest people, and it's only rascals that get on in politics nowadays."
"What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?" queried Marilla, seeing that Anne was opening her Caesar.
"I don't happen to know what Gilbert Blythe's ambition in life is—if he has any," said Anne
scornfully.
There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the rivalry had been rather
onesided, but there was no longer any doubt that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as
Anne was. He was a foeman worthy of her steel. The other members of the class tacitly
acknowledged their superiority, and never dreamed of trying to compete with them.
Since the day by the pond when she had refused to listen to his plea for forgiveness, Gilbert,
save for the aforesaid determined rivalry, had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of
Anne Shirley. He talked and jested with the other girls, exchanged books and puzzles with them,
discussed lessons and plans, sometimes walked home with one or the other of them from prayer
meeting or Debating Club. But Anne Shirley he simply ignored, and Anne found out that it is not
pleasant to be ignored. It was in vain that she told herself with a toss of her head that she did not
care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine little heart she knew that she did care, and that if she
had that chance of the Lake of Shining Waters again she would answer very differently. All at once,
as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old resentment she had cherished
against him was gone—gone just when she most needed its sustaining power. It was in vain that
she recalled every incident and emotion of that memorable occasion and tried to feel the old
satisfying anger. That day by the pond had witnessed its last spasmodic flicker. Anne realized that
she had forgiven and forgotten without knowing it. But it was too late.
And at least neither Gilbert nor anybody else, not even Diana, should ever suspect how sorry she
was and how much she wished she hadn't been so proud and horrid! She determined to "shroud
her feelings in deepest oblivion," and it may be stated here and now that she did it, so successfully
that Gilbert, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as he seemed, could not console himself with
any belief that Anne felt his retaliatory scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed
Charlie Sloane, unmercifully, continually, and undeservedly.
Otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and studies. For Anne the days
slipped by like golden beads on the necklace of the year. She was happy, eager, interested; there
were lessons to be learned and honor to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to be
practiced for the Sunday-school choir; pleasant Saturday afternoons at the manse with Mrs. Allan;
and then, almost before Anne realized it, spring had come again to Green Gables and all the world
was abloom once more.
Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen's class, left behind in school while the others
scattered to green lanes and leafy wood cuts and meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the
windows and discovered that Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and
zest they had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and Gilbert lagged and grew
indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term was ended and the glad vacation
days stretched rosily before them.
"But you've done good work this past year," Miss Stacy told them on the last evening, "and you
deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a
good stock of health and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be the tug of war,
you know—the last year before the Entrance."
"Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?" asked Josie Pye.
Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest of the class felt grateful to
her; none of them would have dared to ask it of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been
alarming rumors running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was not coming
back the next year—that she had been offered a position in the grade school of her own home
district and meant to accept. The Queen's class listened in breathless suspense for her answer.
"Yes, I think I will," said Miss Stacy. "I thought of taking another school, but I have decided to
come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth, I've grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I
couldn't leave them. So I'll stay and see you through."
"Hurrah!" said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried away by his
feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he thought about it for a week.
"Oh, I'm so glad," said Anne, with shining eyes. "Dear Stacy, it would be perfectly dreadful if you
didn't come back. I don't believe I could have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another
teacher came here."
When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in an old trunk in the attic,
locked it, and threw the key into the blanket box.
"I'm not even going to look at a schoolbook in vacation," she told Marilla. "I've studied as hard all
the term as I possibly could and I've pored over that geometry until I know every proposition in the
first book off by heart, even when the letters ARE changed. I just feel tired of everything sensible
and I'm going to let my imagination run riot for the summer. Oh, you needn't be alarmed, Marilla. I'll
only let it run riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a real good jolly time this summer, for
maybe it's the last summer I'll be a little girl. Mrs. Lynde says that if I keep stretching out next year
as I've done this I'll have to put on longer skirts. She says I'm all running to legs and eyes. And when
I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live up to them and be very dignified. It won't even do
to believe in fairies then, I'm afraid; so I'm going to believe in them with all my whole heart this
summer. I think we're going to have a very gay vacation. Ruby Gillis is going to have a birthday
party soon and there's the Sunday school picnic and the missionary concert next month. And Mr.
Barry says that some evening he'll take Diana and me over to the White Sands Hotel and have
dinner there. They have dinner there in the evening, you know. Jane Andrews was over once last
summer and she says it was a dazzling sight to see the electric lights and the flowers and all the
lady guests in such beautiful dresses. Jane says it was her first glimpse into high life and she'll
never forget it to her dying day."
Mrs. Lynde came up the next afternoon to find out why Marilla had not been at the Aid meeting on
Thursday. When Marilla was not at Aid meeting people knew there was something wrong at Green
Gables.
"Matthew had a bad spell with his heart Thursday," Marilla explained, "and I didn't feel like
leaving him. Oh, yes, he's all right again now, but he takes them spells oftener than he used to and
I'm anxious about him. The doctor says he must be careful to avoid excitement. That's easy
enough, for Matthew doesn't go about looking for excitement by any means and never did, but he's
not to do any very heavy work either and you might as well tell Matthew not to breathe as not to
work. Come and lay off your things, Rachel. You'll stay to tea?"
"Well, seeing you're so pressing, perhaps I might as well, stay" said Mrs. Rachel, who had not
the slightest intention of doing anything else.
Mrs. Rachel and Marilla sat comfortably in the parlor while Anne got the tea and made hot
biscuits that were light and white enough to defy even Mrs. Rachel's criticism.
"I must say Anne has turned out a real smart girl," admitted Mrs. Rachel, as Marilla accompanied
her to the end of the lane at sunset. "She must be a great help to you."
"She is," said Marilla, "and she's real steady and reliable now. I used to be afraid she'd never
get over her featherbrained ways, but she has and I wouldn't be afraid to trust her in anything now."
"I never would have thought she'd have turned out so well that first day I was here three years
ago," said Mrs. Rachel. "Lawful heart, shall I ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home
that night I says to Thomas, says I, 'Mark my words, Thomas, Marilla Cuthbert'll live to rue the step
she's took.' But I was mistaken and I'm real glad of it. I ain't one of those kind of people, Marilla, as
can never be brought to own up that they've made a mistake. No, that never was my way, thank
goodness. I did make a mistake in judging Anne, but it weren't no wonder, for an odder,
unexpecteder witch of a child there never was in this world, that's what. There was no ciphering her
out by the rules that worked with other children. It's nothing short of wonderful how she's improved
these three years, but especially in looks. She's a real pretty girl got to be, though I can't say I'm
overly partial to that pale, big-eyed style myself. I like more snap and color, like Diana Barry has or
Ruby Gillis. Ruby Gillis's looks are real showy. But somehow—I don't know how it is but when Anne
and them are together, though she ain't half as handsome, she makes them look kind of common
and overdone—something like them white June lilies she calls narcissus alongside of the big, red
peonies, that's what."
CHAPTER XXXI. Where the Brook and River Meet
Anne had her "good" summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana fairly lived
outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover's Lane and the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and
Victoria Island afforded. Marilla offered no objections to Anne's gypsyings. The Spencervale doctor
who had come the night Minnie May had the croup met Anne at the house of a patient one
afternoon early in vacation, looked her over sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and
sent a message to Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was:
"Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer and don't let her read books until
she gets more spring into her step."
This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne's death warrant by consumption
in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far
as freedom and frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's content; and
when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a step that would have satisfied the
Spencervale doctor and a heart full of ambition and zest once more.
"I feel just like studying with might and main," she declared as she brought her books down from
the attic. "Oh, you good old friends, I'm glad to see your honest faces once more—yes, even you,
geometry. I've had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I'm rejoicing as a strong man to
run a race, as Mr. Allan said last Sunday. Doesn't Mr. Allan preach magnificent sermons? Mrs.
Lynde says he is improving every day and the first thing we know some city church will gobble him
up and then we'll be left and have to turn to and break in another green preacher. But I don't see the
use of meeting trouble halfway, do you, Marilla? I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allan while
we have him. If I were a man I think I'd be a minister. They can have such an influence for good, if
their theology is sound; and it must be thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers'
hearts. Why can't women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that and she was shocked and
said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might be female ministers in the States and
she believed there was, but thank goodness we hadn't got to that stage in Canada yet and she
hoped we never would. But I don't see why. I think women would make splendid ministers. When
there is a social to be got up or a church tea or anything else to raise money the women have to
turn to and do the work. I'm sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as Superintendent Bell and
I've no doubt she could preach too with a little practice."
"Yes, I believe she could," said Marilla dryly. "She does plenty of unofficial preaching as it is.
Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them."
"Marilla," said Anne in a burst of confidence, "I want to tell you something and ask you what you
think about it. It has worried me terribly—on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about
such matters. I do really want to be good; and when I'm with you or Mrs. Allan or Miss Stacy I want it
more than ever and I want to do just what would please you and what you would approve of. But
mostly when I'm with Mrs. Lynde I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the very
thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted to do it. Now, what do you think is the
reason I feel like that? Do you think it's because I'm really bad and unregenerate?"
Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed.
"If you are I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that very effect on me. I sometimes think
she'd have more of an influence for good, as you say yourself, if she didn't keep nagging people to
do right. There should have been a special commandment against nagging. But there, I shouldn't
talk so. Rachel is a good Christian woman and she means well. There isn't a kinder soul in
Avonlea and she never shirks her share of work."
"I'm very glad you feel the same," said Anne decidedly. "It's so encouraging. I shan't worry so
much over that after this. But I dare say there'll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up
new all the time—things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and there's another right
after. There are so many things to be thought over and decided when you're beginning to grow up.
It keeps me busy all the time thinking them over and deciding what is right. It's a serious thing to
grow up, isn't it, Marilla? But when I have such good friends as you and Matthew and Mrs. Allan and
Miss Stacy I ought to grow up successfully, and I'm sure it will be my own fault if I don't. I feel it's a
great responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I don't grow up right I can't go back and
begin over again. I've grown two inches this summer, Marilla. Mr. Gillis measured me at Ruby's
party. I'm so glad you made my new dresses longer. That dark-green one is so pretty and it was
sweet of you to put on the flounce. Of course I know it wasn't really necessary, but flounces are so
stylish this fall and Josie Pye has flounces on all her dresses. I know I'll be able to study better
because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my mind about that
flounce."
"It's worth something to have that," admitted Marilla.
Miss Stacy came back to Avonlea school and found all her pupils eager for work once more.
Especially did the Queen's class gird up their loins for the fray, for at the end of the coming year,
dimly shadowing their pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing known as "the Entrance," at the
thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their very shoes. Suppose they did not pass!
That thought was doomed to haunt Anne through the waking hours of that winter, Sunday
afternoons inclusive, to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological problems. When Anne
had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably at pass lists of the Entrance exams, where
Gilbert Blythe's name was blazoned at the top and in which hers did not appear at all.
But it was a jolly, busy, happy swift-flying winter. Schoolwork was as interesting, class rivalry as
absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of thought, feeling, and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of
unexplored knowledge seemed to be opening out before Anne's eager eyes.

"Hills peeped o'er hill and Alps on Alps arose."

Much of all this was due to Miss Stacy's tactful, careful, broadminded guidance. She led her
class to think and explore and discover for themselves and encouraged straying from the old
beaten paths to a degree that quite shocked Mrs. Lynde and the school trustees, who viewed all
innovations on established methods rather dubiously.
Apart from her studies Anne expanded socially, for Marilla, mindful of the Spencervale doctor's
dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings. The Debating Club flourished and gave several
concerts; there were one or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh
drives and skating frolics galore.
Betweentimes Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly that Marilla was astonished one day, when they
were standing side by side, to find the girl was taller than herself.
"Why, Anne, how you've grown!" she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh followed on the words.
Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne's inches. The child she had learned to love had vanished
somehow and here was this tall, serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the
proudly poised little head, in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much as she had loved the child,
but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful sense of loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to
prayer meeting with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the weakness of a
cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it and gazed at her in such consternation that
Marilla had to laugh through her tears.
"I was thinking about Anne," she explained. "She's got to be such a big girl—and she'll probably
be away from us next winter. I'll miss her terrible."
"She'll be able to come home often," comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was as yet and always
would be the little, eager girl he had brought home from Bright River on that June evening four
years before. "The branch railroad will be built to Carmody by that time."
"It won't be the same thing as having her here all the time," sighed Marilla gloomily, determined
to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted. "But there—men can't understand these things!"
There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change. For one thing, she
became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the more and dreamed as much as ever, but she
certainly talked less. Marilla noticed and commented on this also.
"You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as many big words. What has
come over you?"
Anne colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the
window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the
spring sunshine.
"I don't know—I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her
forefinger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I
don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use big words
any more. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really growing big enough to say them if I did want
to. It's fun to be almost grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla.
There's so much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big words. Besides, Miss Stacy
says the short ones are much stronger and better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as
possible. It was hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I could think of
—and I thought of any number of them. But I've got used to it now and I see it's so much better."
"What has become of your story club? I haven't heard you speak of it for a long time."
"The story club isn't in existence any longer. We hadn't time for it—and anyhow I think we had got
tired of it. It was silly to be writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss
Stacy sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she won't let us write anything
but what might happen in Avonlea in our own lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us
criticize our own too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to look for
them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether, but Miss Stacy said I could learn to
write well if I only trained myself to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to."
"You've only two more months before the Entrance," said Marilla. "Do you think you'll be able to
get through?"
Anne shivered.
"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'll be all right—and then I get horribly afraid. We've studied hard
and Miss Stacy has drilled us thoroughly, but we mayn't get through for all that. We've each got a
stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane's is Latin, and Ruby and Charlie's is
algebra, and Josie's is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon says he feels it in his bones that he is going to
fail in English history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as hard as we'll have
at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so we'll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It
haunts me. Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I'll do if I don't pass."
"Why, go to school next year and try again," said Marilla unconcernedly.
"Oh, I don't believe I'd have the heart for it. It would be such a disgrace to fail, especially if Gil—if
the others passed. And I get so nervous in an examination that I'm likely to make a mess of it. I
wish I had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her."
Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring world, the beckoning day
of breeze and blue, and the green things upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her
book. There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the Entrance, Anne felt
convinced that she would never recover sufficiently to enjoy them.
CHAPTER XXXII. The Pass List Is Out
With the end of June came the close of the term and the close of Miss Stacy's rule in Avonlea
school. Anne and Diana walked home that evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp
handkerchiefs bore convincing testimony to the fact that Miss Stacy's farewell words must have
been quite as touching as Mr. Phillips's had been under similar circumstances three years before.
Diana looked back at the schoolhouse from the foot of the spruce hill and sighed deeply.
"It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn't it?" she said dismally.
"You oughtn't to feel half as badly as I do," said Anne, hunting vainly for a dry spot on her
handkerchief. "You'll be back again next winter, but I suppose I've left the dear old school forever
—if I have good luck, that is."
"It won't be a bit the same. Miss Stacy won't be there, nor you nor Jane nor Ruby probably. I shall
have to sit all alone, for I couldn't bear to have another deskmate after you. Oh, we have had jolly
times, haven't we, Anne? It's dreadful to think they're all over."
Two big tears rolled down by Diana's nose.
"If you would stop crying I could," said Anne imploringly. "Just as soon as I put away my hanky I
see you brimming up and that starts me off again. As Mrs. Lynde says, 'If you can't be cheerful, be
as cheerful as you can.' After all, I dare say I'll be back next year. This is one of the times I KNOW
I'm not going to pass. They're getting alarmingly frequent."
"Why, you came out splendidly in the exams Miss Stacy gave."
"Yes, but those exams didn't make me nervous. When I think of the real thing you can't imagine
what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round my heart. And then my number is thirteen and Josie
Pye says it's so unlucky. I am NOT superstitious and I know it can make no difference. But still I
wish it wasn't thirteen."
"I do wish I was going in with you," said Diana. "Wouldn't we have a perfectly elegant time? But I
suppose you'll have to cram in the evenings."
"No; Miss Stacy has made us promise not to open a book at all. She says it would only tire and
confuse us and we are to go out walking and not think about the exams at all and go to bed early.
It's good advice, but I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think. Prissy
Andrews told me that she sat up half the night every night of her Entrance week and crammed for
dear life; and I had determined to sit up AT LEAST as long as she did. It was so kind of your Aunt
Josephine to ask me to stay at Beechwood while I'm in town."
"You'll write to me while you're in, won't you?"
"I'll write Tuesday night and tell you how the first day goes," promised Anne.
"I'll be haunting the post office Wednesday," vowed Diana.
Anne went to town the following Monday and on Wednesday Diana haunted the post office, as
agreed, and got her letter.
"Dearest Diana" [wrote Anne],
"Here it is Tuesday night and I'm writing this in the library at Beechwood. Last night I was horribly
lonesome all alone in my room and wished so much you were with me. I couldn't "cram" because
I'd promised Miss Stacy not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history as it used to be
to keep from reading a story before my lessons were learned.
"This morning Miss Stacy came for me and we went to the Academy, calling for Jane and Ruby
and Josie on our way. Ruby asked me to feel her hands and they were as cold as ice. Josie said I
looked as if I hadn't slept a wink and she didn't believe I was strong enough to stand the grind of
the teacher's course even if I did get through. There are times and seasons even yet when I don't
feel that I've made any great headway in learning to like Josie Pye!
"When we reached the Academy there were scores of students there from all over the Island.
The first person we saw was Moody Spurgeon sitting on the steps and muttering away to himself.
Jane asked him what on earth he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table
over and over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupt him, because if he stopped
for a moment he got frightened and forgot everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept
all his facts firmly in their proper place!
"When we were assigned to our rooms Miss Stacy had to leave us. Jane and I sat together and
Jane was so composed that I envied her. No need of the multiplication table for good, steady,
sensible Jane! I wondered if I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clear across
the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the English examination sheets. My hands
grew cold then and my head fairly whirled around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment—Diana,
I felt exactly as I did four years ago when I asked Marilla if I might stay at Green Gables—and then
everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began beating again—I forgot to say that it had
stopped altogether!—for I knew I could do something with THAT paper anyhow.
"At noon we went home for dinner and then back again for history in the afternoon. The history
was a pretty hard paper and I got dreadfully mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today.
But oh, Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it it takes every bit of
determination I possess to keep from opening my Euclid. If I thought the multiplication table would
help me any I would recite it from now till tomorrow morning.
"I went down to see the other girls this evening. On my way I met Moody Spurgeon wandering
distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in history and he was born to be a
disappointment to his parents and he was going home on the morning train; and it would be easier
to be a carpenter than a minister, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to stay to the end
because it would be unfair to Miss Stacy if he didn't. Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy,
but when I see Moody Spurgeon I'm always glad I'm a girl and not his sister.
"Ruby was in hysterics when I reached their boardinghouse; she had just discovered a fearful
mistake she had made in her English paper. When she recovered we went uptown and had an ice
cream. How we wished you had been with us.
"Oh, Diana, if only the geometry examination were over! But there, as Mrs. Lynde would say, the
sun will go on rising and setting whether I fail in geometry or not. That is true but not especially
comforting. I think I'd rather it didn't go on if I failed!
"Yours devotedly,
"Anne"
The geometry examination and all the others were over in due time and Anne arrived home on
Friday evening, rather tired but with an air of chastened triumph about her. Diana was over at
Green Gables when she arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.
"You old darling, it's perfectly splendid to see you back again. It seems like an age since you
went to town and oh, Anne, how did you get along?"
"Pretty well, I think, in everything but the geometry. I don't know whether I passed in it or not and I
have a creepy, crawly presentiment that I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the
dearest, loveliest spot in the world."
"How did the others do?"
"The girls say they know they didn't pass, but I think they did pretty well. Josie says the geometry
was so easy a child of ten could do it! Moody Spurgeon still thinks he failed in history and Charlie
says he failed in algebra. But we don't really know anything about it and won't until the pass list is
out. That won't be for a fortnight. Fancy living a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep
and never wake up until it is over."
Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so she merely said:
"Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry."
"I'd rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the list," flashed Anne, by which she
meant—and Diana knew she meant—that success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not
come out ahead of Gilbert Blythe.
With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the examinations. So had Gilbert.
They had met and passed each other on the street a dozen times without any sign of recognition
and every time Anne had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly that she
had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a little more determinedly to surpass
him in the examination. She knew that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first;
she even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question and that Josie Pye
had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert would be first; and she felt that her humiliation
would be unbearable if she failed.
But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted to "pass high" for the
sake of Matthew and Marilla—especially Matthew. Matthew had declared to her his conviction that
she "would beat the whole Island." That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to hope for
even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she would be among the first ten at
least, so that she might see Matthew's kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement.
That, she felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient grubbing among
unimaginative equations and conjugations.
At the end of the fortnight Anne took to "haunting" the post office also, in the distracted company
of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold,
sinkaway feelings as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert were
not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely away.
"I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood," he told Anne. "I'm just going
to wait until somebody comes and tells me suddenly whether I've passed or not."
When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began to feel that she
really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Her appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings
languished. Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory superintendent of
education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne's paleness and indifference and the
lagging steps that bore her home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if
he hadn't better vote Grit at the next election.
But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, for the time forgetful of
the woes of examinations and the cares of the world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer
dusk, sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the
stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the
west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana
come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper
in her hand.
Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her
head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to
her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so
great was her excitement.
"Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the VERY FIRST—you and Gilbert both—you're ties
—but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!"
Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of
further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen
matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper.
Yes, she had passed—there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment
was worth living for.
"You did just splendidly, Anne," puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for
Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word. "Father brought the paper home from Bright
River not ten minutes ago—it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till
tomorrow by mail—and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all
passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and
Ruby did pretty well—they're halfway up—and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three
marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be
delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it
were me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a
spring evening."
"I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say
them in. I never dreamed of this—yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think ONCE, 'What if I should
come out first?' quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead
the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go
up the road and tell the good news to the others."
They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and, as luck would
have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence.
"Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first—or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm
thankful."
"Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list delightedly. "I knew you could
beat them all easy."
"You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying to hide her extreme pride in Anne
from Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But that good soul said heartily:
"I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in saying it. You're a credit
to your friends, Anne, that's what, and we're all proud of you."
That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious little talk with Mrs. Allan
at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a
prayer of gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it thankfulness for
the past and reverent petition for the future; and when she slept on her white pillow her dreams
were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood might desire.
CHAPTER XXXIII. The Hotel Concert
"Put on your white organdy, by all means, Anne," advised Diana decidedly.
They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only twilight—a lovely yellowish-
green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid
luster into burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet summer sounds
—sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway voices and laughter. But in Anne's room the
blind was drawn and the lamp lighted, for an important toilet was being made.
The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on that night four years before,
when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill.
Changes had crept in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and dainty a nest
as a young girl could desire.
The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of Anne's early visions had
certainly never materialized; but her dreams had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable
she lamented them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened the
high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not
with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a
few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place of honor,
and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a
spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no
"mahogany furniture," but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a cushioned
wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink
Cupids and purple grapes painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a
low white bed.
Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had got it up in aid of the
Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all the available amateur talent in the surrounding
districts to help it along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir had
been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a violin solo; Winnie Adella Blair
of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad; and Laura Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of
Avonlea were to recite.
As Anne would have said at one time, it was "an epoch in her life," and she was deliciously athrill
with the excitement of it. Matthew was in the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor
conferred on his Anne and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather than
admit it, and said she didn't think it was very proper for a lot of young folks to be gadding over to
the hotel without any responsible person with them.
Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother Billy in their double-
seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and boys were going too. There was a party of
visitors expected out from town, and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers.

"Do you really think the organdy will be best?" queried Anne anxiously.
"I don't think it's as pretty as my blue-flowered muslin—and it
certainly isn't so fashionable."

"But it suits you ever so much better," said Diana. "It's so soft
and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too
dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you."

Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for notable taste in
dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much sought after. She was looking very pretty
herself on this particular night in a dress of the lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was forever
debarred; but she was not to take any part in the concert, so her appearance was of minor
importance. All her pains were bestowed upon Anne, who, she vowed, must, for the credit of
Avonlea, be dressed and combed and adorned to the Queen's taste.
"Pull out that frill a little more—so; here, let me tie your sash; now for your slippers. I'm going to
braid your hair in two thick braids, and tie them halfway up with big white bows—no, don't pull out a
single curl over your forehead—just have the soft part. There is no way you do your hair suits you
so well, Anne, and Mrs. Allan says you look like a Madonna when you part it so. I shall fasten this
little white house rose just behind your ear. There was just one on my bush, and I saved it for you."
"Shall I put my pearl beads on?" asked Anne. "Matthew brought me a string from town last week,
and I know he'd like to see them on me."
Diana pursed up her lips, put her black head on one side critically, and finally pronounced in
favor of the beads, which were thereupon tied around Anne's slim milk-white throat.
"There's something so stylish about you, Anne," said Diana, with unenvious admiration. "You
hold your head with such an air. I suppose it's your figure. I am just a dumpling. I've always been
afraid of it, and now I know it is so. Well, I suppose I shall just have to resign myself to it."
"But you have such dimples," said Anne, smiling affectionately into the pretty, vivacious face so
near her own. "Lovely dimples, like little dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My
dimple-dream will never come true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn't complain. Am I all
ready now?"
"All ready," assured Diana, as Marilla appeared in the doorway, a gaunt figure with grayer hair
than of yore and no fewer angles, but with a much softer face. "Come right in and look at our
elocutionist, Marilla. Doesn't she look lovely?"
Marilla emitted a sound between a sniff and a grunt.
"She looks neat and proper. I like that way of fixing her hair. But I expect she'll ruin that dress
driving over there in the dust and dew with it, and it looks most too thin for these damp nights.
Organdy's the most unserviceable stuff in the world anyhow, and I told Matthew so when he got it.
But there is no use in saying anything to Matthew nowadays. Time was when he would take my
advice, but now he just buys things for Anne regardless, and the clerks at Carmody know they can
palm anything off on him. Just let them tell him a thing is pretty and fashionable, and Matthew
plunks his money down for it. Mind you keep your skirt clear of the wheel, Anne, and put your warm
jacket on."
Then Marilla stalked downstairs, thinking proudly how sweet Anne looked, with that

"One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown"

and regretting that she could not go to the concert herself to hear her girl recite.
"I wonder if it IS too damp for my dress," said Anne anxiously.
"Not a bit of it," said Diana, pulling up the window blind. "It's a perfect night, and there won't be
any dew. Look at the moonlight."
"I'm so glad my window looks east into the sunrising," said Anne, going over to Diana. "It's so
splendid to see the morning coming up over those long hills and glowing through those sharp fir
tops. It's new every morning, and I feel as if I washed my very soul in that bath of earliest sunshine.
Oh, Diana, I love this little room so dearly. I don't know how I'll get along without it when I go to town
next month."
"Don't speak of your going away tonight," begged Diana. "I don't want to think of it, it makes me
so miserable, and I do want to have a good time this evening. What are you going to recite, Anne?
And are you nervous?"
"Not a bit. I've recited so often in public I don't mind at all now. I've decided to give 'The Maiden's
Vow.' It's so pathetic. Laura Spencer is going to give a comic recitation, but I'd rather make people
cry than laugh."
"What will you recite if they encore you?"
"They won't dream of encoring me," scoffed Anne, who was not without her own secret hopes
that they would, and already visioned herself telling Matthew all about it at the next morning's
breakfast table. "There are Billy and Jane now—I hear the wheels. Come on."
Billy Andrews insisted that Anne should ride on the front seat with him, so she unwillingly climbed
up. She would have much preferred to sit back with the girls, where she could have laughed and
chattered to her heart's content. There was not much of either laughter or chatter in Billy. He was a
big, fat, stolid youth of twenty, with a round, expressionless face, and a painful lack of
conversational gifts. But he admired Anne immensely, and was puffed up with pride over the
prospect of driving to White Sands with that slim, upright figure beside him.
Anne, by dint of talking over her shoulder to the girls and occasionally passing a sop of civility to
Billy—who grinned and chuckled and never could think of any reply until it was too late—contrived
to enjoy the drive in spite of all. It was a night for enjoyment. The road was full of buggies, all bound
for the hotel, and laughter, silver clear, echoed and reechoed along it. When they reached the hotel
it was a blaze of light from top to bottom. They were met by the ladies of the concert committee,
one of whom took Anne off to the performers' dressing room which was filled with the members of
a Charlottetown Symphony Club, among whom Anne felt suddenly shy and frightened and
countrified. Her dress, which, in the east gable, had seemed so dainty and pretty, now seemed
simple and plain—too simple and plain, she thought, among all the silks and laces that glistened
and rustled around her. What were her pearl beads compared to the diamonds of the big,
handsome lady near her? And how poor her one wee white rose must look beside all the hothouse
flowers the others wore! Anne laid her hat and jacket away, and shrank miserably into a corner.
She wished herself back in the white room at Green Gables.
It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel, where she presently found
herself. The electric lights dazzled her eyes, the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she
were sitting down in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a splendid time
away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink silk and a tall, scornful-looking
girl in a white-lace dress. The stout lady occasionally turned her head squarely around and
surveyed Anne through her eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so scrutinized, felt that
she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the
"country bumpkins" and "rustic belles" in the audience, languidly anticipating "such fun" from the
displays of local talent on the program. Anne believed that she would hate that white-lace girl to the
end of life.
Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the hotel and had consented to
recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven
moonbeams, with gems on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice and
wonderful power of expression; the audience went wild over her selection. Anne, forgetting all
about herself and her troubles for the time, listened with rapt and shining eyes; but when the
recitation ended she suddenly put her hands over her face. She could never get up and recite after
that—never. Had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if she were only back at Green Gables!
At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne—who did not notice the
rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle
compliment implied therein if she had—got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front. She was
so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each other's hands in nervous
sympathy.
Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as she had recited in
public, she had never before faced such an audience as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her
energies completely. Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering—the rows of ladies in
evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of wealth and culture about her. Very
different this from the plain benches at the Debating Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces
of friends and neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless critics. Perhaps, like the
white-lace girl, they anticipated amusement from her "rustic" efforts. She felt hopelessly, helplessly
ashamed and miserable. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness came over
her; not a word could she utter, and the next moment she would have fled from the platform despite
the humiliation which, she felt, must ever after be her portion if she did so.
But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the audience, she saw Gilbert
Blythe away at the back of the room, bending forward with a smile on his face—a smile which
seemed to Anne at once triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert was
merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and of the effect produced by Anne's
slender white form and spiritual face against a background of palms in particular. Josie Pye, whom
he had driven over, sat beside him, and her face certainly was both triumphant and taunting. But
Anne did not see Josie, and would not have cared if she had. She drew a long breath and flung her
head up proudly, courage and determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She WOULD
NOT fail before Gilbert Blythe—he should never be able to laugh at her, never, never! Her fright and
nervousness vanished; and she began her recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest
corner of the room without a tremor or a break. Self-possession was fully restored to her, and in the
reaction from that horrible moment of powerlessness she recited as she had never done before.
When she finished there were bursts of honest applause. Anne, stepping back to her seat,
blushing with shyness and delight, found her hand vigorously clasped and shaken by the stout lady
in pink silk.
"My dear, you did splendidly," she puffed. "I've been crying like a baby, actually I have. There,
they're encoring you—they're bound to have you back!"
"Oh, I can't go," said Anne confusedly. "But yet—I must, or Matthew will be disappointed. He said
they would encore me."
"Then don't disappoint Matthew," said the pink lady, laughing.
Smiling, blushing, limpid eyed, Anne tripped back and gave a quaint, funny little selection that
captivated her audience still further. The rest of the evening was quite a little triumph for her.
When the concert was over, the stout, pink lady—who was the wife of an American millionaire
—took her under her wing, and introduced her to everybody; and everybody was very nice to her.
The professional elocutionist, Mrs. Evans, came and chatted with her, telling her that she had a
charming voice and "interpreted" her selections beautifully. Even the white-lace girl paid her a
languid little compliment. They had supper in the big, beautifully decorated dining room; Diana and
Jane were invited to partake of this, also, since they had come with Anne, but Billy was nowhere to
be found, having decamped in mortal fear of some such invitation. He was in waiting for them, with
the team, however, when it was all over, and the three girls came merrily out into the calm, white
moonshine radiance. Anne breathed deeply, and looked into the clear sky beyond the dark boughs
of the firs.
Oh, it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night! How great and still and
wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs
beyond like grim giants guarding enchanted coasts.
"Hasn't it been a perfectly splendid time?" sighed Jane, as they drove away. "I just wish I was a
rich American and could spend my summer at a hotel and wear jewels and low-necked dresses
and have ice cream and chicken salad every blessed day. I'm sure it would be ever so much more
fun than teaching school. Anne, your recitation was simply great, although I thought at first you were
never going to begin. I think it was better than Mrs. Evans's."
"Oh, no, don't say things like that, Jane," said Anne quickly, "because it sounds silly. It couldn't be
better than Mrs. Evans's, you know, for she is a professional, and I'm only a schoolgirl, with a little
knack of reciting. I'm quite satisfied if the people just liked mine pretty well."
"I've a compliment for you, Anne," said Diana. "At least I think it must be a compliment because
of the tone he said it in. Part of it was anyhow. There was an American sitting behind Jane and me
—such a romantic-looking man, with coal-black hair and eyes. Josie Pye says he is a
distinguished artist, and that her mother's cousin in Boston is married to a man that used to go to
school with him. Well, we heard him say—didn't we, Jane?—'Who is that girl on the platform with
the splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint.' There now, Anne. But what does
Titian hair mean?"
"Being interpreted it means plain red, I guess," laughed Anne. "Titian was a very famous artist
who liked to paint red-haired women."
"DID you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?" sighed Jane. "They were simply dazzling.
Wouldn't you just love to be rich, girls?"
"We ARE rich," said Anne staunchly. "Why, we have sixteen years to our credit, and we're happy
as queens, and we've all got imaginations, more or less. Look at that sea, girls—all silver and
shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions
of dollars and ropes of diamonds. You wouldn't change into any of those women if you could.
Would you want to be that white-lace girl and wear a sour look all your life, as if you'd been born
turning up your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so stout and short that
you'd really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must
have been dreadfully unhappy sometime to have such a look. You KNOW you wouldn't, Jane
Andrews!"
"I DON'T know—exactly," said Jane unconvinced. "I think diamonds would comfort a person for
a good deal."
"Well, I don't want to be anyone but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life,"
declared Anne. "I'm quite content to be Anne of Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I
know Matthew gave me as much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady's
jewels."
CHAPTER XXXIV. A Queen's Girl
The next three weeks were busy ones at Green Gables, for Anne was getting ready to go to
Queen's, and there was much sewing to be done, and many things to be talked over and arranged.
Anne's outfit was ample and pretty, for Matthew saw to that, and Marilla for once made no
objections whatever to anything he purchased or suggested. More—one evening she went up to
the east gable with her arms full of a delicate pale green material.
"Anne, here's something for a nice light dress for you. I don't suppose you really need it; you've
plenty of pretty waists; but I thought maybe you'd like something real dressy to wear if you were
asked out anywhere of an evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear that Jane and
Ruby and Josie have got 'evening dresses,' as they call them, and I don't mean you shall be behind
them. I got Mrs. Allan to help me pick it in town last week, and we'll get Emily Gillis to make it for
you. Emily has got taste, and her fits aren't to be equaled."
"Oh, Marilla, it's just lovely," said Anne. "Thank you so much. I don't believe you ought to be so
kind to me—it's making it harder every day for me to go away."
The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and shirrings as Emily's taste
permitted. Anne put it on one evening for Matthew's and Marilla's benefit, and recited "The
Maiden's Vow" for them in the kitchen. As Marilla watched the bright, animated face and graceful
motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green Gables, and memory
recalled a vivid picture of the odd, frightened child in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincey
dress, the heartbreak looking out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to
Marilla's own eyes.
"I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla," said Anne gaily stooping over Marilla's chair
to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's cheek. "Now, I call that a positive triumph."
"No, I wasn't crying over your piece," said Marilla, who would have scorned to be betrayed into
such weakness by any poetry stuff. "I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne.
And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You've grown up
now and you're going away; and you look so tall and stylish and so—so—different altogether in that
dress—as if you didn't belong in Avonlea at all—and I just got lonesome thinking it all over."
"Marilla!" Anne sat down on Marilla's gingham lap, took Marilla's lined face between her hands,
and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla's eyes. "I'm not a bit changed—not really. I'm only just
pruned down and branched out. The real ME—back here—is just the same. It won't make a bit of
difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne,
who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life."
Anne laid her fresh young cheek against Marilla's faded one, and reached out a hand to pat
Matthew's shoulder. Marilla would have given much just then to have possessed Anne's power of
putting her feelings into words; but nature and habit had willed it otherwise, and she could only put
her arms close about her girl and hold her tenderly to her heart, wishing that she need never let her
go.
Matthew, with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, got up and went out-of-doors. Under the stars of
the blue summer night he walked agitatedly across the yard to the gate under the poplars.
"Well now, I guess she ain't been much spoiled," he muttered, proudly. "I guess my putting in my
oar occasional never did much harm after all. She's smart and pretty, and loving, too, which is
better than all the rest. She's been a blessing to us, and there never was a luckier mistake than
what Mrs. Spencer made—if it WAS luck. I don't believe it was any such thing. It was Providence,
because the Almighty saw we needed her, I reckon."
The day finally came when Anne must go to town. She and Matthew drove in one fine September
morning, after a tearful parting with Diana and an untearful practical one—on Marilla's side at least
—with Marilla. But when Anne had gone Diana dried her tears and went to a beach picnic at White
Sands with some of her Carmody cousins, where she contrived to enjoy herself tolerably well;
while Marilla plunged fiercely into unnecessary work and kept at it all day long with the bitterest
kind of heartache—the ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away in ready tears. But
that night, when Marilla went to bed, acutely and miserably conscious that the little gable room at
the end of the hall was untenanted by any vivid young life and unstirred by any soft breathing, she
buried her face in her pillow, and wept for her girl in a passion of sobs that appalled her when she
grew calm enough to reflect how very wicked it must be to take on so about a sinful fellow creature.
Anne and the rest of the Avonlea scholars reached town just in time to hurry off to the Academy.
That first day passed pleasantly enough in a whirl of excitement, meeting all the new students,
learning to know the professors by sight and being assorted and organized into classes. Anne
intended taking up the Second Year work being advised to do so by Miss Stacy; Gilbert Blythe
elected to do the same. This meant getting a First Class teacher's license in one year instead of
two, if they were successful; but it also meant much more and harder work. Jane, Ruby, Josie,
Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the stirrings of ambition, were content to
take up the Second Class work. Anne was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found
herself in a room with fifty other students, not one of whom she knew, except the tall, brown-haired
boy across the room; and knowing him in the fashion she did, did not help her much, as she
reflected pessimistically. Yet she was undeniably glad that they were in the same class; the old
rivalry could still be carried on, and Anne would hardly have known what to do if it had been lacking.
"I wouldn't feel comfortable without it," she thought. "Gilbert looks awfully determined. I suppose
he's making up his mind, here and now, to win the medal. What a splendid chin he has! I never
noticed it before. I do wish Jane and Ruby had gone in for First Class, too. I suppose I won't feel so
much like a cat in a strange garret when I get acquainted, though. I wonder which of the girls here
are going to be my friends. It's really an interesting speculation. Of course I promised Diana that no
Queen's girl, no matter how much I liked her, should ever be as dear to me as she is; but I've lots of
second-best affections to bestow. I like the look of that girl with the brown eyes and the crimson
waist. She looks vivid and red-rosy; there's that pale, fair one gazing out of the window. She has
lovely hair, and looks as if she knew a thing or two about dreams. I'd like to know them both—know
them well—well enough to walk with my arm about their waists, and call them nicknames. But just
now I don't know them and they don't know me, and probably don't want to know me particularly.
Oh, it's lonesome!"
It was lonesomer still when Anne found herself alone in her hall bedroom that night at twilight.
She was not to board with the other girls, who all had relatives in town to take pity on them. Miss
Josephine Barry would have liked to board her, but Beechwood was so far from the Academy that
it was out of the question; so miss Barry hunted up a boarding-house, assuring Matthew and
Marilla that it was the very place for Anne.
"The lady who keeps it is a reduced gentlewoman," explained Miss Barry. "Her husband was a
British officer, and she is very careful what sort of boarders she takes. Anne will not meet with any
objectionable persons under her roof. The table is good, and the house is near the Academy, in a
quiet neighborhood."
All this might be quite true, and indeed, proved to be so, but it did not materially help Anne in the
first agony of homesickness that seized upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little
room, with its dull-papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty book-case; and a
horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of her own white room at Green Gables, where
she would have the pleasant consciousness of a great green still outdoors, of sweet peas growing
in the garden, and moonlight falling on the orchard, of the brook below the slope and the spruce
boughs tossing in the night wind beyond it, of a vast starry sky, and the light from Diana's window
shining out through the gap in the trees. Here there was nothing of this; Anne knew that outside of
her window was a hard street, with a network of telephone wires shutting out the sky, the tramp of
alien feet, and a thousand lights gleaming on stranger faces. She knew that she was going to cry,
and fought against it.
"I WON'T cry. It's silly—and weak—there's the third tear splashing down by my nose. There are
more coming! I must think of something funny to stop them. But there's nothing funny except what is
connected with Avonlea, and that only makes things worse—four—five—I'm going home next
Friday, but that seems a hundred years away. Oh, Matthew is nearly home by now—and Marilla is
at the gate, looking down the lane for him—six—seven—eight—oh, there's no use in counting
them! They're coming in a flood presently. I can't cheer up—I don't WANT to cheer up. It's nicer to
be miserable!"
The flood of tears would have come, no doubt, had not Josie Pye appeared at that moment. In
the joy of seeing a familiar face Anne forgot that there had never been much love lost between her
and Josie. As a part of Avonlea life even a Pye was welcome.
"I'm so glad you came up," Anne said sincerely.
"You've been crying," remarked Josie, with aggravating pity. "I suppose you're homesick—some
people have so little self-control in that respect. I've no intention of being homesick, I can tell you.
Town's too jolly after that poky old Avonlea. I wonder how I ever existed there so long. You shouldn't
cry, Anne; it isn't becoming, for your nose and eyes get red, and then you seem ALL red. I'd a
perfectly scrumptious time in the Academy today. Our French professor is simply a duck. His
moustache would give you kerwollowps of the heart. Have you anything eatable around, Anne? I'm
literally starving. Ah, I guessed likely Marilla'd load you up with cake. That's why I called round.
Otherwise I'd have gone to the park to hear the band play with Frank Stockley. He boards same
place as I do, and he's a sport. He noticed you in class today, and asked me who the red-headed
girl was. I told him you were an orphan that the Cuthberts had adopted, and nobody knew very
much about what you'd been before that."
Anne was wondering if, after all, solitude and tears were not more satisfactory than Josie Pye's
companionship when Jane and Ruby appeared, each with an inch of Queen's color ribbon—purple
and scarlet—pinned proudly to her coat. As Josie was not "speaking" to Jane just then she had to
subside into comparative harmlessness.
"Well," said Jane with a sigh, "I feel as if I'd lived many moons since the morning. I ought to be
home studying my Virgil—that horrid old professor gave us twenty lines to start in on tomorrow. But
I simply couldn't settle down to study tonight. Anne, methinks I see the traces of tears. If you've
been crying DO own up. It will restore my self-respect, for I was shedding tears freely before Ruby
came along. I don't mind being a goose so much if somebody else is goosey, too. Cake? You'll
give me a teeny piece, won't you? Thank you. It has the real Avonlea flavor."
Ruby, perceiving the Queen's calendar lying on the table, wanted to know if Anne meant to try for
the gold medal.
Anne blushed and admitted she was thinking of it.
"Oh, that reminds me," said Josie, "Queen's is to get one of the Avery scholarships after all. The
word came today. Frank Stockley told me—his uncle is one of the board of governors, you know. It
will be announced in the Academy tomorrow."
An Avery scholarship! Anne felt her heart beat more quickly, and the horizons of her ambition
shifted and broadened as if by magic. Before Josie had told the news Anne's highest pinnacle of
aspiration had been a teacher's provincial license, First Class, at the end of the year, and perhaps
the medal! But now in one moment Anne saw herself winning the Avery scholarship, taking an Arts
course at Redmond College, and graduating in a gown and mortar board, before the echo of
Josie's words had died away. For the Avery scholarship was in English, and Anne felt that here her
foot was on native heath.
A wealthy manufacturer of New Brunswick had died and left part of his fortune to endow a large
number of scholarships to be distributed among the various high schools and academies of the
Maritime Provinces, according to their respective standings. There had been much doubt whether
one would be allotted to Queen's, but the matter was settled at last, and at the end of the year the
graduate who made the highest mark in English and English Literature would win the scholarship
—two hundred and fifty dollars a year for four years at Redmond College. No wonder that Anne
went to bed that night with tingling cheeks!
"I'll win that scholarship if hard work can do it," she resolved. "Wouldn't Matthew be proud if I got
to be a B.A.? Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never
seems to be any end to them—that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you
see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting."
CHAPTER XXXV. The Winter at Queen's
Anne's homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by her weekend visits home. As
long as the open weather lasted the Avonlea students went out to Carmody on the new branch
railway every Friday night. Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally on hand to
meet them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party. Anne thought those Friday evening
gypsyings over the autumnal hills in the crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling
beyond, were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.
Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried her satchel for her. Ruby was a
very handsome young lady, now thinking herself quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her
skirts as long as her mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she had to take it
down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes, a brilliant complexion, and a plump
showy figure. She laughed a great deal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the
pleasant things of life frankly.
"But I shouldn't think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like," whispered Jane to Anne. Anne
did not think so either, but she would not have said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help
thinking, too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbert to jest and chatter with
and exchange ideas about books and studies and ambitions. Gilbert had ambitions, she knew,
and Ruby Gillis did not seem the sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed.
There was no silly sentiment in Anne's ideas concerning Gilbert. Boys were to her, when she
thought about them at all, merely possible good comrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends she
would not have cared how many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. She had a genius
for friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vague consciousness that masculine
friendship might also be a good thing to round out one's conceptions of companionship and furnish
broader standpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put her feelings on the
matter into just such clear definition. But she thought that if Gilbert had ever walked home with her
from the train, over the crisp fields and along the ferny byways, they might have had many and
merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening around them and their
hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a clever young fellow, with his own thoughts about things
and a determination to get the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told Jane Andrews
that she didn't understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said; he talked just like Anne Shirley did
when she had a thoughtful fit on and for her part she didn't think it any fun to be bothering about
books and that sort of thing when you didn't have to. Frank Stockley had lots more dash and go,
but then he wasn't half as good-looking as Gilbert and she really couldn't decide which she liked
best!
In the Academy Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends about her, thoughtful, imaginative,
ambitious students like herself. With the "rose-red" girl, Stella Maynard, and the "dream girl,"
Priscilla Grant, she soon became intimate, finding the latter pale spiritual-looking maiden to be full
to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun, while the vivid, black-eyed Stella had a heartful of
wistful dreams and fancies, as aerial and rainbow-like as Anne's own.
After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave up going home on Fridays and settled
down to hard work. By this time all the Queen's scholars had gravitated into their own places in the
ranks and the various classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings of individuality. Certain
facts had become generally accepted. It was admitted that the medal contestants had practically
narrowed down to three—Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, and Lewis Wilson; the Avery scholarship
was more doubtful, any one of a certain six being a possible winner. The bronze medal for
mathematics was considered as good as won by a fat, funny little up-country boy with a bumpy
forehead and a patched coat.
Ruby Gillis was the handsomest girl of the year at the Academy; in the Second Year classes
Stella Maynard carried off the palm for beauty, with small but critical minority in favor of Anne
Shirley. Ethel Marr was admitted by all competent judges to have the most stylish modes of hair-
dressing, and Jane Andrews—plain, plodding, conscientious Jane—carried off the honors in the
domestic science course. Even Josie Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-
tongued young lady in attendance at Queen's. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy's old pupils
held their own in the wider arena of the academical course.
Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intense as it had ever been in
Avonlea school, although it was not known in the class at large, but somehow the bitterness had
gone out of it. Anne no longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the proud
consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It would be worth while to win, but she
no longer thought life would be insupportable if she did not.
In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times. Anne spent many of her
spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate her Sunday dinners there and went to church with
Miss Barry. The latter was, as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the
vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened the latter on Anne, who continued
to be a prime favorite with the critical old lady.
"That Anne-girl improves all the time," she said. "I get tired of other girls—there is such a
provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne has as many shades as a rainbow and every
shade is the prettiest while it lasts. I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a
child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much
trouble in making myself love them."
Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out in Avonlea the Mayflowers were
peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens where snow-wreaths lingered; and the "mist of green" was
on the woods and in the valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen's students thought and
talked only of examinations.
"It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over," said Anne. "Why, last fall it seemed so
long to look forward to—a whole winter of studies and classes. And here we are, with the exams
looming up next week. Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but when I look
at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they
don't seem half so important."
Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not take this view of it. To them the coming
examinations were constantly very important indeed—far more important than chestnut buds or
Maytime hazes. It was all very well for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her
moments of belittling them, but when your whole future depended on them—as the girls truly
thought theirs did—you could not regard them philosophically.
"I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks," sighed Jane. "It's no use to say don't worry. I WILL
worry. Worrying helps you some—it seems as if you were doing something when you're worrying. It
would be dreadful if I failed to get my license after going to Queen's all winter and spending so
much money."
"I don't care," said Josie Pye. "If I don't pass this year I'm coming back next. My father can afford
to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley says that Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to
get the medal and that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery scholarship."
"That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie," laughed Anne, "but just now I honestly feel that
as long as I know the violets are coming out all purple down in the hollow below Green Gables and
that little ferns are poking their heads up in Lovers' Lane, it's not a great deal of difference whether
I win the Avery or not. I've done my best and I begin to understand what is meant by the 'joy of the
strife.' Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don't talk about exams!
Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses and picture to yourself what it must look like
over the purply-dark beech-woods back of Avonlea."
"What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?" asked Ruby practically.
Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter drifted into a side eddy of fashions. But
Anne, with her elbows on the window sill, her soft cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her
eyes filled with visions, looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome of
sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden tissue of youth's own
optimism. All the Beyond was hers with its possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years—each
year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.
CHAPTER XXXVI. The Glory and the Dream
On the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be posted on the bulletin
board at Queen's, Anne and Jane walked down the street together. Jane was smiling and happy;
examinations were over and she was comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further
considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring ambitions and consequently was not
affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this
world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their
dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more
minutes she would know who had won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes
there did not seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time.
"Of course you'll win one of them anyhow," said Jane, who couldn't understand how the faculty
could be so unfair as to order it otherwise.
"I have not hope of the Avery," said Anne. "Everybody says Emily Clay will win it. And I'm not
going to march up to that bulletin board and look at it before everybody. I haven't the moral
courage. I'm going straight to the girls' dressing room. You must read the announcements and then
come and tell me, Jane. And I implore you in the name of our old friendship to do it as quickly as
possible. If I have failed just say so, without trying to break it gently; and whatever you do DON'T
sympathize with me. Promise me this, Jane."
Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no necessity for such a promise. When
they went up the entrance steps of Queen's they found the hall full of boys who were carrying
Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices, "Hurrah for Blythe,
Medalist!"
For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. So she had failed
and Gilbert had won! Well, Matthew would be sorry—he had been so sure she would win.
And then!
Somebody called out:
"Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!"
"Oh, Anne," gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls' dressing room amid hearty cheers. "Oh, Anne
I'm so proud! Isn't it splendid?"
And then the girls were around them and Anne was the center of a laughing, congratulating
group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands shaken vigorously. She was pushed and pulled
and hugged and among it all she managed to whisper to Jane:
"Oh, won't Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the news home right away."
Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises were held in the big
assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses were given, essays read, songs sung, the public award
of diplomas, prizes and medals made.
Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only one student on the platform—a tall
girl in pale green, with faintly flushed cheeks and starry eyes, who read the best essay and was
pointed out and whispered about as the Avery winner.
"Reckon you're glad we kept her, Marilla?" whispered Matthew, speaking for the first time since
he had entered the hall, when Anne had finished her essay.
"It's not the first time I've been glad," retorted Marilla. "You do like to rub things in, Matthew
Cuthbert."
Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward and poked Marilla in the back with her
parasol.
"Aren't you proud of that Anne-girl? I am," she said.
Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had not been home
since April and she felt that she could not wait another day. The apple blossoms were out and the
world was fresh and young. Diana was at Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where
Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill, Anne looked about her and drew a long
breath of happiness.
"Oh, Diana, it's so good to be back again. It's so good to see those pointed firs coming out
against the pink sky—and that white orchard and the old Snow Queen. Isn't the breath of the mint
delicious? And that tea rose—why, it's a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it's GOOD to
see you again, Diana!"
"I thought you liked that Stella Maynard better than me," said Diana reproachfully. "Josie Pye told
me you did. Josie said you were INFATUATED with her."
Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded "June lilies" of her bouquet.
"Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are that one, Diana," she
said. "I love you more than ever—and I've so many things to tell you. But just now I feel as if it were
joy enough to sit here and look at you. I'm tired, I think—tired of being studious and ambitious. I
mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the orchard grass, thinking of absolutely
nothing."
"You've done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won't be teaching now that you've won the Avery?"
"No. I'm going to Redmond in September. Doesn't it seem wonderful? I'll have a brand new
stock of ambition laid in by that time after three glorious, golden months of vacation. Jane and
Ruby are going to teach. Isn't it splendid to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and
Josie Pye?"
"The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already," said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe is
going to teach, too. He has to. His father can't afford to send him to college next year, after all, so
he means to earn his own way through. I expect he'll get the school here if Miss Ames decides to
leave."
Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not known this; she had
expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond also. What would she do without their inspiring
rivalry? Would not work, even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be rather
flat without her friend the enemy?
The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne that Matthew was not looking well. Surely
he was much grayer than he had been a year before.
"Marilla," she said hesitatingly when he had gone out, "is Matthew quite well?"
"No, he isn't," said Marilla in a troubled tone. "He's had some real bad spells with his heart this
spring and he won't spare himself a mite. I've been real worried about him, but he's some better
this while back and we've got a good hired man, so I'm hoping he'll kind of rest and pick up.
Maybe he will now you're home. You always cheer him up."
Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla's face in her hands.
"You are not looking as well yourself as I'd like to see you, Marilla. You look tired. I'm afraid
you've been working too hard. You must take a rest, now that I'm home. I'm just going to take this
one day off to visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will be your turn to
be lazy while I do the work."
Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl.
"It's not the work—it's my head. I've got a pain so often now—behind my eyes. Doctor Spencer's
been fussing with glasses, but they don't do me any good. There is a distinguished oculist coming
to the Island the last of June and the doctor says I must see him. I guess I'll have to. I can't read or
sew with any comfort now. Well, Anne, you've done real well at Queen's I must say. To take First
Class License in one year and win the Avery scholarship—well, well, Mrs. Lynde says pride goes
before a fall and she doesn't believe in the higher education of women at all; she says it unfits them
for woman's true sphere. I don't believe a word of it. Speaking of Rachel reminds me—did you
hear anything about the Abbey Bank lately, Anne?"
"I heard it was shaky," answered Anne. "Why?"
"That is what Rachel said. She was up here one day last week and said there was some talk
about it. Matthew felt real worried. All we have saved is in that bank—every penny. I wanted
Matthew to put it in the Savings Bank in the first place, but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of
father's and he'd always banked with him. Matthew said any bank with him at the head of it was
good enough for anybody."
"I think he has only been its nominal head for many years," said Anne. "He is a very old man; his
nephews are really at the head of the institution."
"Well, when Rachel told us that, I wanted Matthew to draw our money right out and he said he'd
think of it. But Mr. Russell told him yesterday that the bank was all right."
Anne had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She never forgot that day; it
was so bright and golden and fair, so free from shadow and so lavish of blossom. Anne spent
some of its rich hours in the orchard; she went to the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Violet
Vale; she called at the manse and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allan; and finally in the evening
she went with Matthew for the cows, through Lovers' Lane to the back pasture. The woods were all
gloried through with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill gaps in the
west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne, tall and erect, suited her springing step to his.
"You've been working too hard today, Matthew," she said reproachfully. "Why won't you take
things easier?"
"Well now, I can't seem to," said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate to let the cows through.
"It's only that I'm getting old, Anne, and keep forgetting it. Well, well, I've always worked pretty hard
and I'd rather drop in harness."
"If I had been the boy you sent for," said Anne wistfully, "I'd be able to help you so much now and
spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it in my heart to wish I had been, just for that."
"Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne," said Matthew patting her hand. "Just
mind you that—rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery
scholarship, was it? It was a girl—my girl—my girl that I'm proud of."
He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the memory of it with her
when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window, thinking of the
past and dreaming of the future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; the
frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always remembered the silvery,
peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life;
and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon
it.
CHAPTER XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death
"Matthew—Matthew—what is the matter? Matthew, are you sick?"
It was Marilla who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Anne came through the hall, her hands full of
white narcissus,—it was long before Anne could love the sight or odor of white narcissus again,
—in time to hear her and to see Matthew standing in the porch doorway, a folded paper in his
hand, and his face strangely drawn and gray. Anne dropped her flowers and sprang across the
kitchen to him at the same moment as Marilla. They were both too late; before they could reach
him Matthew had fallen across the threshold.
"He's fainted," gasped Marilla. "Anne, run for Martin—quick, quick! He's at the barn."
Martin, the hired man, who had just driven home from the post office, started at once for the
doctor, calling at Orchard Slope on his way to send Mr. and Mrs. Barry over. Mrs. Lynde, who was
there on an errand, came too. They found Anne and Marilla distractedly trying to restore Matthew to
consciousness.
Mrs. Lynde pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her ear over his heart. She
looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and the tears came into her eyes.
"Oh, Marilla," she said gravely. "I don't think—we can do anything for him."
"Mrs. Lynde, you don't think—you can't think Matthew is—is—" Anne could not say the dreadful
word; she turned sick and pallid.
"Child, yes, I'm afraid of it. Look at his face. When you've seen that look as often as I have you'll
know what it means."
Anne looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Great Presence.
When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous and probably painless,
caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. The secret of the shock was discovered to be in
the paper Matthew had held and which Martin had brought from the office that morning. It contained
an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank.
The news spread quickly through Avonlea, and all day friends and neighbors thronged Green
Gables and came and went on errands of kindness for the dead and living. For the first time shy,
quiet Matthew Cuthbert was a person of central importance; the white majesty of death had fallen
on him and set him apart as one crowned.
When the calm night came softly down over Green Gables the old house was hushed and
tranquil. In the parlor lay Matthew Cuthbert in his coffin, his long gray hair framing his placid face on
which there was a little kindly smile as if he but slept, dreaming pleasant dreams. There were
flowers about him—sweet old-fashioned flowers which his mother had planted in the homestead
garden in her bridal days and for which Matthew had always had a secret, wordless love. Anne had
gathered them and brought them to him, her anguished, tearless eyes burning in her white face. It
was the last thing she could do for him.
The Barrys and Mrs. Lynde stayed with them that night. Diana, going to the east gable, where
Anne was standing at her window, said gently:
"Anne dear, would you like to have me sleep with you tonight?"
"Thank you, Diana." Anne looked earnestly into her friend's face. "I think you won't
misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone. I'm not afraid. I haven't been alone one minute
since it happened—and I want to be. I want to be quite silent and quiet and try to realize it. I can't
realize it. Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can't be dead; and the other half it seems as if
he must have been dead for a long time and I've had this horrible dull ache ever since."
Diana did not quite understand. Marilla's impassioned grief, breaking all the bounds of natural
reserve and lifelong habit in its stormy rush, she could comprehend better than Anne's tearless
agony. But she went away kindly, leaving Anne alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow.
Anne hoped that the tears would come in solitude. It seemed to her a terrible thing that she could
not shed a tear for Matthew, whom she had loved so much and who had been so kind to her,
Matthew who had walked with her last evening at sunset and was now lying in the dim room below
with that awful peace on his brow. But no tears came at first, even when she knelt by her window in
the darkness and prayed, looking up to the stars beyond the hills—no tears, only the same horrible
dull ache of misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep, worn out with the day's pain and
excitement.
In the night she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness about her, and the recollection of
the day came over her like a wave of sorrow. She could see Matthew's face smiling at her as he
had smiled when they parted at the gate that last evening—she could hear his voice saying, "My
girl—my girl that I'm proud of." Then the tears came and Anne wept her heart out. Marilla heard her
and crept in to comfort her.
"There—there—don't cry so, dearie. It can't bring him back. It—it—isn't right to cry so. I knew that
today, but I couldn't help it then. He'd always been such a good, kind brother to me—but God
knows best."
"Oh, just let me cry, Marilla," sobbed Anne. "The tears don't hurt me like that ache did. Stay here
for a little while with me and keep your arm round me—so. I couldn't have Diana stay, she's good
and kind and sweet—but it's not her sorrow—she's outside of it and she couldn't come close
enough to my heart to help me. It's our sorrow—yours and mine. Oh, Marilla, what will we do without
him?"
"We've got each other, Anne. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here—if you'd never come.
Oh, Anne, I know I've been kind of strict and harsh with you maybe—but you mustn't think I didn't
love you as well as Matthew did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It's never been easy
for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like this it's easier. I love you as dear as if you
were my own flesh and blood and you've been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green
Gables."
Two days afterwards they carried Matthew Cuthbert over his homestead threshold and away
from the fields he had tilled and the orchards he had loved and the trees he had planted; and then
Avonlea settled back to its usual placidity and even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their old
groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, although always with the
aching sense of "loss in all familiar things." Anne, new to grief, thought it almost sad that it could be
so—that they COULD go on in the old way without Matthew. She felt something like shame and
remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs and the pale pink buds opening in
the garden gave her the old inrush of gladness when she saw them—that Diana's visits were
pleasant to her and that Diana's merry words and ways moved her to laughter and smiles—that, in
brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and friendship had lost none of its power to please
her fancy and thrill her heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices.
"It seems like disloyalty to Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure in these things now that he has
gone," she said wistfully to Mrs. Allan one evening when they were together in the manse garden. "I
miss him so much—all the time—and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world and life seem very beautiful and
interesting to me for all. Today Diana said something funny and I found myself laughing. I thought
when it happened I could never laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn't to."
"When Matthew was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know that you found
pleasure in the pleasant things around you," said Mrs. Allan gently. "He is just away now; and he
likes to know it just the same. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing
influences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling. I think we all experience the
same thing. We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer
here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when
we find our interest in life returning to us."
"I was down to the graveyard to plant a rosebush on Matthew's grave this afternoon," said Anne
dreamily. "I took a slip of the little white Scotch rosebush his mother brought out from Scotland long
ago; Matthew always liked those roses the best—they were so small and sweet on their thorny
stems. It made me feel glad that I could plant it by his grave—as if I were doing something that
must please him in taking it there to be near him. I hope he has roses like them in heaven. Perhaps
the souls of all those little white roses that he has loved so many summers were all there to meet
him. I must go home now. Marilla is all alone and she gets lonely at twilight."
"She will be lonelier still, I fear, when you go away again to college," said Mrs. Allan.
Anne did not reply; she said good night and went slowly back to green Gables. Marilla was
sitting on the front door-steps and Anne sat down beside her. The door was open behind them,
held back by a big pink conch shell with hints of sea sunsets in its smooth inner convolutions.
Anne gathered some sprays of pale-yellow honeysuckle and put them in her hair. She liked the
delicious hint of fragrance, as some aerial benediction, above her every time she moved.
"Doctor Spencer was here while you were away," Marilla said. "He says that the specialist will
be in town tomorrow and he insists that I must go in and have my eyes examined. I suppose I'd
better go and have it over. I'll be more than thankful if the man can give me the right kind of glasses
to suit my eyes. You won't mind staying here alone while I'm away, will you? Martin will have to drive
me in and there's ironing and baking to do."
"I shall be all right. Diana will come over for company for me. I shall attend to the ironing and
baking beautifully—you needn't fear that I'll starch the handkerchiefs or flavor the cake with
liniment."
Marilla laughed.
"What a girl you were for making mistakes in them days, Anne. You were always getting into
scrapes. I did use to think you were possessed. Do you mind the time you dyed your hair?"
"Yes, indeed. I shall never forget it," smiled Anne, touching the heavy braid of hair that was
wound about her shapely head. "I laugh a little now sometimes when I think what a worry my hair
used to be to me—but I don't laugh MUCH, because it was a very real trouble then. I did suffer
terribly over my hair and my freckles. My freckles are really gone; and people are nice enough to
tell me my hair is auburn now—all but Josie Pye. She informed me yesterday that she really
thought it was redder than ever, or at least my black dress made it look redder, and she asked me
if people who had red hair ever got used to having it. Marilla, I've almost decided to give up trying
to like Josie Pye. I've made what I would once have called a heroic effort to like her, but Josie Pye
won't BE liked."
"Josie is a Pye," said Marilla sharply, "so she can't help being disagreeable. I suppose people
of that kind serve some useful purpose in society, but I must say I don't know what it is any more
than I know the use of thistles. Is Josie going to teach?"
"No, she is going back to Queen's next year. So are Moody Spurgeon and Charlie Sloane. Jane
and Ruby are going to teach and they have both got schools—Jane at Newbridge and Ruby at
some place up west."
"Gilbert Blythe is going to teach too, isn't he?"
"Yes"—briefly.
"What a nice-looking fellow he is," said Marilla absently. "I saw him in church last Sunday and he
seemed so tall and manly. He looks a lot like his father did at the same age. John Blythe was a
nice boy. We used to be real good friends, he and I. People called him my beau."
Anne looked up with swift interest.
"Oh, Marilla—and what happened?—why didn't you—"
"We had a quarrel. I wouldn't forgive him when he asked me to. I meant to, after awhile—but I
was sulky and angry and I wanted to punish him first. He never came back—the Blythes were all
mighty independent. But I always felt—rather sorry. I've always kind of wished I'd forgiven him when
I had the chance."
"So you've had a bit of romance in your life, too," said Anne softly.
"Yes, I suppose you might call it that. You wouldn't think so to look at me, would you? But you
never can tell about people from their outsides. Everybody has forgot about me and John. I'd
forgotten myself. But it all came back to me when I saw Gilbert last Sunday."
CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Bend in the road
Marilla went to town the next day and returned in the evening. Anne had gone over to Orchard
Slope with Diana and came back to find Marilla in the kitchen, sitting by the table with her head
leaning on her hand. Something in her dejected attitude struck a chill to Anne's heart. She had
never seen Marilla sit limply inert like that.
"Are you very tired, Marilla?"
"Yes—no—I don't know," said Marilla wearily, looking up. "I suppose I am tired but I haven't
thought about it. It's not that."
"Did you see the oculist? What did he say?" asked Anne anxiously.
"Yes, I saw him. He examined my eyes. He says that if I give up all reading and sewing entirely
and any kind of work that strains the eyes, and if I'm careful not to cry, and if I wear the glasses he's
given me he thinks my eyes may not get any worse and my headaches will be cured. But if I don't
he says I'll certainly be stone-blind in six months. Blind! Anne, just think of it!"
For a minute Anne, after her first quick exclamation of dismay, was silent. It seemed to her that
she could NOT speak. Then she said bravely, but with a catch in her voice:
"Marilla, DON'T think of it. You know he has given you hope. If you are careful you won't lose your
sight altogether; and if his glasses cure your headaches it will be a great thing."
"I don't call it much hope," said Marilla bitterly. "What am I to live for if I can't read or sew or do
anything like that? I might as well be blind—or dead. And as for crying, I can't help that when I get
lonesome. But there, it's no good talking about it. If you'll get me a cup of tea I'll be thankful. I'm
about done out. Don't say anything about this to any one for a spell yet, anyway. I can't bear that
folks should come here to question and sympathize and talk about it."
When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then Anne went herself to
the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness
of heart. How sadly things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home! Then
she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she
had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in
her heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend—as duty ever is
when we meet it frankly.
One afternoon a few days later Marilla came slowly in from the front yard where she had been
talking to a caller—a man whom Anne knew by sight as Sadler from Carmody. Anne wondered
what he could have been saying to bring that look to Marilla's face.
"What did Mr. Sadler want, Marilla?"
Marilla sat down by the window and looked at Anne. There were tears in her eyes in defiance of
the oculist's prohibition and her voice broke as she said:
"He heard that I was going to sell Green Gables and he wants to buy it."
"Buy it! Buy Green Gables?" Anne wondered if she had heard aright. "Oh, Marilla, you don't
mean to sell Green Gables!"
"Anne, I don't know what else is to be done. I've thought it all over. If my eyes were strong I could
stay here and make out to look after things and manage, with a good hired man. But as it is I can't.
I may lose my sight altogether; and anyway I'll not be fit to run things. Oh, I never thought I'd live to
see the day when I'd have to sell my home. But things would only go behind worse and worse all
the time, till nobody would want to buy it. Every cent of our money went in that bank; and there's
some notes Matthew gave last fall to pay. Mrs. Lynde advises me to sell the farm and board
somewhere—with her I suppose. It won't bring much—it's small and the buildings are old. But it'll
be enough for me to live on I reckon. I'm thankful you're provided for with that scholarship, Anne. I'm
sorry you won't have a home to come to in your vacations, that's all, but I suppose you'll manage
somehow."
Marilla broke down and wept bitterly.
"You mustn't sell Green Gables," said Anne resolutely.
"Oh, Anne, I wish I didn't have to. But you can see for yourself. I can't stay here alone. I'd go crazy
with trouble and loneliness. And my sight would go—I know it would."
"You won't have to stay here alone, Marilla. I'll be with you. I'm not going to Redmond."
"Not going to Redmond!" Marilla lifted her worn face from her hands and looked at Anne. "Why,
what do you mean?"
"Just what I say. I'm not going to take the scholarship. I decided so the night after you came
home from town. You surely don't think I could leave you alone in your trouble, Marilla, after all
you've done for me. I've been thinking and planning. Let me tell you my plans. Mr. Barry wants to
rent the farm for next year. So you won't have any bother over that. And I'm going to teach. I've
applied for the school here—but I don't expect to get it for I understand the trustees have promised
it to Gilbert Blythe. But I can have the Carmody school—Mr. Blair told me so last night at the store.
Of course that won't be quite as nice or convenient as if I had the Avonlea school. But I can board
home and drive myself over to Carmody and back, in the warm weather at least. And even in winter
I can come home Fridays. We'll keep a horse for that. Oh, I have it all planned out, Marilla. And I'll
read to you and keep you cheered up. You sha'n't be dull or lonesome. And we'll be real cozy and
happy here together, you and I."
Marilla had listened like a woman in a dream.
"Oh, Anne, I could get on real well if you were here, I know. But I can't let you sacrifice yourself so
for me. It would be terrible."
"Nonsense!" Anne laughed merrily. "There is no sacrifice. Nothing could be worse than giving up
Green Gables—nothing could hurt me more. We must keep the dear old place. My mind is quite
made up, Marilla. I'm NOT going to Redmond; and I AM going to stay here and teach. Don't you
worry about me a bit."
"But your ambitions—and—"
"I'm just as ambitious as ever. Only, I've changed the object of my ambitions. I'm going to be a
good teacher—and I'm going to save your eyesight. Besides, I mean to study at home here and
take a little college course all by myself. Oh, I've dozens of plans, Marilla. I've been thinking them
out for a week. I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I
left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see
along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but
I'm going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder
how the road beyond it goes—what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows
—what new landscapes—what new beauties—what curves and hills and valleys further on."
"I don't feel as if I ought to let you give it up," said Marilla, referring to the scholarship.
"But you can't prevent me. I'm sixteen and a half, 'obstinate as a mule,' as Mrs. Lynde once told
me," laughed Anne. "Oh, Marilla, don't you go pitying me. I don't like to be pitied, and there is no
need for it. I'm heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green Gables. Nobody could love
it as you and I do—so we must keep it."
"You blessed girl!" said Marilla, yielding. "I feel as if you'd given me new life. I guess I ought to
stick out and make you go to college—but I know I can't, so I ain't going to try. I'll make it up to you
though, Anne."
When it became noised abroad in Avonlea that Anne Shirley had given up the idea of going to
college and intended to stay home and teach there was a good deal of discussion over it. Most of
the good folks, not knowing about Marilla's eyes, thought she was foolish. Mrs. Allan did not. She
told Anne so in approving words that brought tears of pleasure to the girl's eyes. Neither did good
Mrs. Lynde. She came up one evening and found Anne and Marilla sitting at the front door in the
warm, scented summer dusk. They liked to sit there when the twilight came down and the white
moths flew about in the garden and the odor of mint filled the dewy air.
Mrs. Rachel deposited her substantial person upon the stone bench by the door, behind which
grew a row of tall pink and yellow hollyhocks, with a long breath of mingled weariness and relief.
"I declare I'm getting glad to sit down. I've been on my feet all day, and two hundred pounds is a
good bit for two feet to carry round. It's a great blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate
it. Well, Anne, I hear you've given up your notion of going to college. I was real glad to hear it.
You've got as much education now as a woman can be comfortable with. I don't believe in girls
going to college with the men and cramming their heads full of Latin and Greek and all that
nonsense."
"But I'm going to study Latin and Greek just the same, Mrs. Lynde," said Anne laughing. "I'm
going to take my Arts course right here at Green Gables, and study everything that I would at
college."
Mrs. Lynde lifted her hands in holy horror.
"Anne Shirley, you'll kill yourself."
"Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I'm not going to overdo things. As 'Josiah Allen's wife,' says,
I shall be 'mejum'. But I'll have lots of spare time in the long winter evenings, and I've no vocation for
fancy work. I'm going to teach over at Carmody, you know."
"I don't know it. I guess you're going to teach right here in Avonlea. The trustees have decided to
give you the school."
"Mrs. Lynde!" cried Anne, springing to her feet in her surprise. "Why, I thought they had promised
it to Gilbert Blythe!"
"So they did. But as soon as Gilbert heard that you had applied for it he went to them—they had
a business meeting at the school last night, you know—and told them that he withdrew his
application, and suggested that they accept yours. He said he was going to teach at White Sands.
Of course he knew how much you wanted to stay with Marilla, and I must say I think it was real kind
and thoughtful in him, that's what. Real self-sacrificing, too, for he'll have his board to pay at White
Sands, and everybody knows he's got to earn his own way through college. So the trustees
decided to take you. I was tickled to death when Thomas came home and told me."
"I don't feel that I ought to take it," murmured Anne. "I mean—I don't think I ought to let Gilbert
make such a sacrifice for—for me."
"I guess you can't prevent him now. He's signed papers with the White Sands trustees. So it
wouldn't do him any good now if you were to refuse. Of course you'll take the school. You'll get
along all right, now that there are no Pyes going. Josie was the last of them, and a good thing she
was, that's what. There's been some Pye or other going to Avonlea school for the last twenty years,
and I guess their mission in life was to keep school teachers reminded that earth isn't their home.
Bless my heart! What does all that winking and blinking at the Barry gable mean?"
"Diana is signaling for me to go over," laughed Anne. "You know we keep up the old custom.
Excuse me while I run over and see what she wants."
Anne ran down the clover slope like a deer, and disappeared in the firry shadows of the Haunted
Wood. Mrs. Lynde looked after her indulgently.
"There's a good deal of the child about her yet in some ways."
"There's a good deal more of the woman about her in others," retorted Marilla, with a momentary
return of her old crispness.
But crispness was no longer Marilla's distinguishing characteristic. As Mrs. Lynde told her
Thomas that night.
"Marilla Cuthbert has got MELLOW. That's what."
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew's
grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of
the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its whispering
grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that
sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a
dreamlike afterlight—"a haunt of ancient peace." There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that
had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the
homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The
west was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The
beauty of it all thrilled Anne's heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
"Dear old world," she murmured, "you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you."
Halfway down the hill a tall lad came whistling out of a gate before the Blythe homestead. It was
Gilbert, and the whistle died on his lips as he recognized Anne. He lifted his cap courteously, but he
would have passed on in silence, if Anne had not stopped and held out her hand.
"Gilbert," she said, with scarlet cheeks, "I want to thank you for giving up the school for me. It
was very good of you—and I want you to know that I appreciate it."
Gilbert took the offered hand eagerly.
"It wasn't particularly good of me at all, Anne. I was pleased to be able to do you some small
service. Are we going to be friends after this? Have you really forgiven me my old fault?"
Anne laughed and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand.
"I forgave you that day by the pond landing, although I didn't know it. What a stubborn little goose
I was. I've been—I may as well make a complete confession—I've been sorry ever since."
"We are going to be the best of friends," said Gilbert, jubilantly. "We were born to be good
friends, Anne. You've thwarted destiny enough. I know we can help each other in many ways. You
are going to keep up your studies, aren't you? So am I. Come, I'm going to walk home with you."
Marilla looked curiously at Anne when the latter entered the kitchen.
"Who was that came up the lane with you, Anne?"
"Gilbert Blythe," answered Anne, vexed to find herself blushing. "I met him on Barry's hill."
"I didn't think you and Gilbert Blythe were such good friends that you'd stand for half an hour at
the gate talking to him," said Marilla with a dry smile.
"We haven't been—we've been good enemies. But we have decided that it will be much more
sensible to be good friends in the future. Were we really there half an hour? It seemed just a few
minutes. But, you see, we have five years' lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla."
Anne sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content. The wind purred softly in
the cherry boughs, and the mint breaths came up to her. The stars twinkled over the pointed firs in
the hollow and Diana's light gleamed through the old gap.
Anne's horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after coming home from
Queen's; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet
happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial
friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of
dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!
"'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world,'" whispered Anne softly. softly.
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